PVS-Studio Documentation (single file)

Jan. 18, 2021

Introduction
Analyzing projects
- On Windows
- On Linux and macOS
Continuous use of the analyzer in software development
Deploying the analyzer in cloud Continuous Integration services
Managing analysis results
Additional configuration and resolving issues
Analyzer Diagnostics
Additional information

You can open full PVS-Studio documentation as single file. In addition, you can print it as .pdf with help virtual printer.

Introduction

Analyzing projects

On Windows

On Linux and macOS

Continuous use of the analyzer in software development

Deploying the analyzer in cloud Continuous Integration services

Managing analysis results

Additional configuration and resolving issues

Tips on speeding up PVS-Studio.
PVS-Studio: Troubleshooting.
Additional diagnostics configuration.
Predefined PVS_STUDIO macro.
PVS-Studio Settings in Visual Studio / C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI

Analyzer Diagnostics

PVS-Studio Messages.
- General Analysis (C++)
- General Analysis (C#)
- General Analysis (Java)
- Diagnosis of micro-optimizations (C++)
- Diagnosis of 64-bit errors (C++)
- Customer's Specific Requests (C++)
- Problems related to code analyzer

Additional information

Credits and acknowledgements.

PVS-Studio Messages

What bugs can PVS-Studio detect?
List of all analyzer rules in XML
General Analysis (C++)
General Analysis (C#)
General Analysis (Java)
Diagnosis of micro-optimizations (C++)
Diagnosis of 64-bit errors (Viva64, C++)
Customers Specific Requests (C++)
MISRA errors
Problems related to code analyzer

What bugs can PVS-Studio detect?

We grouped the diagnostic, so that you can get the general idea of what PVS-Studio is capable of.

As it is hard to do strict grouping, some diagnostics belong to several groups. For example, the incorrect condition "if (abc == abc)" can be interpreted both as a simple typo, but also as a security issue, because it leads to the program vulnerability if the input data are incorrect.

Some of the errors, on the contrary, couldn't fit any of the groups, because they were too specific. Nevertheless this table gives the insight about the functionality of the static code analyzer.

List of all analyzer rules in XML

You can find a permanent link to machine-readable map of all analyzer's rules in XML format here.

Main PVS-Studio diagnostic abilities	Diagnostics
64-bit issues	C, C++: V101-V128, V201-V207, V220, V221, V301-V303
Check that addresses to stack memory does not leave the function	C, C++: V506, V507, V558, V758
Arithmetic over/underflow	C, C++: V636, V658, V784, V786, V1012, V1028, V1029, V1033 C#: V3040, V3041 Java: V6011, V6088
Array index out of bounds	C, C++: V557, V582, V643, V781, V1038 C#: V3106 Java: V6025, V6079
Double-free	C, C++: V586, V749, V1002, V1006
Dead code	C, C++: V606, V607
Microoptimization	C, C++: V801-V829
Unreachable code	C, C++: V551, V695, V734, V776, V779, V785 C#: V3136, V3142 Java: V6018, V6019
Uninitialized variables	C, C++: V573, V614, V679, V730, V737, V788, V1007, V1050 C#: V3070, V3128 Java: V6036, V6050, V6052, V6090
Unused variables	C, C++: V603, V751, V763, V1001 C#: V3061, V3065, V3077, V3117, V3137, V3143 Java: V6021, V6022, V6023
Illegal bitwise/shift operations	C, C++: V610, V629, V673, V684, V770 C#: V3134 Java: V6034, V6069
Undefined/unspecified behavior	C, C++: V567, V610, V611, V681, V704, V708, V726, V736, V1016, V1026, V1032, V1061
Incorrect handling of the types (HRESULT, BSTR, BOOL, VARIANT_BOOL, float, double)	C, C++: V543, V544, V545, V716, V721, V724, V745, V750, V676, V767, V768, V772, V775, V1027, V1034, V1046, V1060 C#: V3111, V3121, V3148
Improper understanding of function/class operation logic	C, C++: V518, V530, V540, V541, V554, V575, V597, V598, V618, V630, V632, V663, V668, V698, V701, V702, V717, V718, V720, V723, V725, V727, V738, V742, V743, V748, V762, V764, V780, V789, V797, V1014, V1024, V1031, V1035, V1045, V1052, V1053, V1054, V1057 C#: V3010, V3057, V3068, V3072, V3073, V3074, V3082, V3084, V3094, V3096, V3097, V3102, V3103, V3104, V3108, V3114, V3115, V3118, V3123, V3126, V3145 Java: V6009, V6010, V6016, V6026, V6029, V6049, V6055, V6058, V6064, V6068, V6081
Misprints	C, C++: V501, V503, V504, V508, V511, V516, V519, V520, V521, V525, V527, V528, V529, V532, V533, V534, V535, V536, V537, V539, V546, V549, V552, V556, V559, V560, V561, V564, V568, V570, V571, V575, V577, V578, V584, V587, V588, V589, V590, V592, V600, V602, V604, V606, V607, V616, V617, V620, V621, V622, V625, V626, V627, V633, V637, V638, V639, V644, V646, V650, V651, V653, V654, V655, V660, V661, V662, V666, V669, V671, V672, V678, V682, V683, V693, V715, V722, V735, V747, V754, V756, V765, V767, V787, V791, V792, V796, V1013, V1015, V1021, V1040, V1051 C#: V3001, V3003, V3005, V3007, V3008, V3009, V3011, V3012, V3014, V3015, V3016, V3020, V3028, V3029, V3034, V3035, V3036, V3037, V3038, V3050, V3055, V3056, V3057, V3062, V3063, V3066, V3081, V3086, V3091, V3092, V3107, V3109, V3110, V3112, V3113, V3116, V3122, V3124, V3132, V3140 Java: V6001, V6005, V6009, V6012, V6014, V6015, V6017, V6021, V6026, V6028, V6029, V6030, V6031, V6037, V6041, V6042, V6043, V6045, V6057, V6059, V6061, V6062, V6063, V6077, V6080, V6085, V6091
Missing Virtual destructor	C, C++: V599, V689
Coding style not matching the operation logic of the source code	C, C++: V563, V612, V628, V640, V646, V705, V1044 C#: V3018, V3033, V3043, V3067, V3069, V3138, V3150 Java: V6040, V6047, V6086, V6089
Copy-Paste	C, C++: V501, V517, V519, V523, V524, V571, V581, V649, V656, V691, V760, V766, V778, V1037 C#: V3001, V3003, V3004, V3008, V3012, V3013, V3021, V3030, V3058, V3127, V3139, V3140 Java: V6003, V6004, V6012, V6021, V6027, V6032, V6033, V6039, V6067, V6072
Incorrect usage of exceptions	C, C++: V509, V565, V596, V667, V740, V741, V746, V759, V1022 C#: V3006, V3052, V3100, V3141 Java: V6006, V6051
Buffer overrun	C, C++: V512, V514, V594, V635, V641, V645, V752, V755
Security issues	C, C++: V505, V510, V511, V512, V518, V531, V541, V547, V559, V560, V569, V570, V575, V576, V579, V583, V597, V598, V618, V623, V642, V645, V675, V676, V724, V727, V729, V733, V743, V745, V750, V771, V774, V782, V1003, V1005, V1010, V1017 C#: V3022, V3023, V3025, V3027, V3053, V3063 Java: V6007, V6046, V6054
Operation priority	C, C++: V502, V562, V593, V634, V648 C#: V3130, V3133 Java: V6044
Null pointer / null reference dereference	C, C++: V522, V595, V664, V757, V769 C#: V3019, V3042, V3080, V3095, V3105, V3125, V3141, V3145, V3146, V3148, V3149, V3153 Java: V6008, V6060
Unchecked parameter dereference	C, C++: V595, V664, V783, V1004 C#: V3095 Java: V6060
Synchronization errors	C, C++: V712, V1011, V1018, V1025, V1036 C#: V3032, V3054, V3079, V3083, V3089, V3090, V3147 Java: V6070, V6074, V6082
WPF usage errors	C#: V3044-V3049
Resource leaks	C, C++: V701, V773, V1020, V1023
Check for integer division by zero	C, C++: V609 C#: V3064, V3151, V3152 Java: V6020
Serialization / deserialization issues	C, C++: V739, V1024 C#: V3094, V3096, V3097, V3099, V3103, V3104 Java: V6065, V6075, V6076, V6083, V6087
Customized user rules	C, C++: V2001-V2014

Table – PVS-Studio functionality.

As you see, the analyzer is especially useful is such spheres as looking for bugs caused by Copy-Paste and detecting security flaws.

To these diagnostics in action, have a look at the error base. We collect all the errors that we have found, checking various open source projects with PVS-Studio.

General Analysis (C++)

V501. There are identical sub-expressions to the left and to the right of the 'foo' operator.
V502. Perhaps the '?:' operator works in a different way than it was expected. The '?:' operator has a lower priority than the 'foo' operator.
V503. This is a nonsensical comparison: pointer < 0.
V504. It is highly probable that the semicolon ';' is missing after 'return' keyword.
V505. The 'alloca' function is used inside the loop. This can quickly overflow stack.
V506. Pointer to local variable 'X' is stored outside the scope of this variable. Such a pointer will become invalid.
V507. Pointer to local array 'X' is stored outside the scope of this array. Such a pointer will become invalid.
V508. The use of 'new type(n)' pattern was detected. Probably meant: 'new type[n]'.
V509. Exceptions that were raised inside noexcept functions must be wrapped in a try..catch block.
V510. The 'Foo' function is not expected to receive class-type variable as 'N' actual argument.
V511. The sizeof() operator returns size of the pointer, and not of the array, in given expression.
V512. A call of the 'Foo' function will lead to a buffer overflow or underflow.
V513. Use _beginthreadex/_endthreadex functions instead of CreateThread/ExitThread functions.
V514. Dividing sizeof a pointer by another value. There is a probability of logical error presence.
V515. The 'delete' operator is applied to non-pointer.
V516. Consider inspecting an odd expression. Non-null function pointer is compared to null.
V517. The use of 'if (A) {...} else if (A) {...}' pattern was detected. There is a probability of logical error presence.
V518. The 'malloc' function allocates strange amount of memory calculated by 'strlen(expr)'. Perhaps the correct variant is strlen(expr) + 1.
V519. The 'x' variable is assigned values twice successively. Perhaps this is a mistake.
V520. The comma operator ',' in array index expression.
V521. Such expressions using the ',' operator are dangerous. Make sure the expression is correct.
V522. Dereferencing of the null pointer might take place.
V523. The 'then' statement is equivalent to the 'else' statement.
V524. It is odd that the body of 'Foo_1' function is fully equivalent to the body of 'Foo_2' function.
V525. The code contains the collection of similar blocks. Check items X, Y, Z, ... in lines N1, N2, N3, ...
V526. The 'strcmp' function returns 0 if corresponding strings are equal. Consider examining the condition for mistakes.
V527. It is odd that the 'zero' value is assigned to pointer. Probably meant: *ptr = zero.
V528. It is odd that pointer is compared with the 'zero' value. Probably meant: *ptr != zero.
V529. Odd semicolon ';' after 'if/for/while' operator.
V530. The return value of function 'Foo' is required to be utilized.
V531. It is odd that a sizeof() operator is multiplied by sizeof().
V532. Consider inspecting the statement of '*pointer++' pattern. Probably meant: '(*pointer)++'.
V533. It is likely that a wrong variable is being incremented inside the 'for' operator. Consider reviewing 'X'.
V534. It is likely that a wrong variable is being compared inside the 'for' operator. Consider reviewing 'X'.
V535. The variable 'X' is being used for this loop and for the outer loop.
V536. Be advised that the utilized constant value is represented by an octal form.
V537. Consider reviewing the correctness of 'X' item's usage.
V538. The line contains control character 0x0B (vertical tabulation).
V539. Consider inspecting iterators which are being passed as arguments to function 'Foo'.
V540. Member 'x' should point to string terminated by two 0 characters.
V541. It is dangerous to print a string into itself.
V542. Consider inspecting an odd type cast: 'Type1' to ' Type2'.
V543. It is odd that value 'X' is assigned to the variable 'Y' of HRESULT type.
V544. It is odd that the value 'X' of HRESULT type is compared with 'Y'.
V545. Such conditional expression of 'if' statement is incorrect for the HRESULT type value 'Foo'. The SUCCEEDED or FAILED macro should be used instead.
V546. Member of a class is initialized with itself: 'Foo(Foo)'.
V547. Expression is always true/false.
V548. Consider reviewing type casting. TYPE X[][] is not equivalent to TYPE **X.
V549. The 'first' argument of 'Foo' function is equal to the 'second' argument.
V550. An odd precise comparison. It's probably better to use a comparison with defined precision: fabs(A - B) < Epsilon or fabs(A - B) > Epsilon.
V551. The code under this 'case' label is unreachable.
V552. A bool type variable is being incremented. Perhaps another variable should be incremented instead.
V553. The length of function's body or class's declaration is more than 2000 lines long. You should consider refactoring the code.
V554. Incorrect use of smart pointer.
V555. The expression of the 'A - B > 0' kind will work as 'A != B'.
V556. The values of different enum types are compared.
V557. Array overrun is possible.
V558. Function returns the pointer/reference to temporary local object.
V559. Suspicious assignment inside the conditional expression of 'if/while/for' statement.
V560. A part of conditional expression is always true/false.
V561. It's probably better to assign value to 'foo' variable than to declare it anew.
V562. It's odd to compare a bool type value with a value of N.
V563. It is possible that this 'else' branch must apply to the previous 'if' statement.
V564. The '&' or '|' operator is applied to bool type value. You've probably forgotten to include parentheses or intended to use the '&&' or '||' operator.
V565. An empty exception handler. Silent suppression of exceptions can hide the presence of bugs in source code during testing.
V566. The integer constant is converted to pointer. Possibly an error or a bad coding style.
V567. The modification of a variable is unsequenced relative to another operation on the same variable. This may lead to undefined behavior.
V568. It's odd that the argument of sizeof() operator is the expression.
V569. Truncation of constant value.
V570. The variable is assigned to itself.
V571. Recurring check. This condition was already verified in previous line.
V572. It is odd that the object which was created using 'new' operator is immediately cast to another type.
V573. Uninitialized variable 'Foo' was used. The variable was used to initialize itself.
V574. The pointer is used simultaneously as an array and as a pointer to single object.
V575. Function receives an odd argument.
V576. Incorrect format. Consider checking the N actual argument of the 'Foo' function.
V577. Label is present inside a switch(). It is possible that these are misprints and 'default:' operator should be used instead.
V578. An odd bitwise operation detected. Consider verifying it.
V579. The 'Foo' function receives the pointer and its size as arguments. It is possibly a mistake. Inspect the N argument.
V580. An odd explicit type casting. Consider verifying it.
V581. The conditional expressions of the 'if' statements situated alongside each other are identical.
V582. Consider reviewing the source code which operates the container.
V583. The '?:' operator, regardless of its conditional expression, always returns one and the same value.
V584. The same value is present on both sides of the operator. The expression is incorrect or it can be simplified.
V585. An attempt to release the memory in which the 'Foo' local variable is stored.
V586. The 'Foo' function is called twice for deallocation of the same resource.
V587. An odd sequence of assignments of this kind: A = B; B = A;.
V588. The expression of the 'A =+ B' kind is utilized. Consider reviewing it, as it is possible that 'A += B' was meant.
V589. The expression of the 'A =- B' kind is utilized. Consider reviewing it, as it is possible that 'A -= B' was meant.
V590. Consider inspecting this expression. The expression is excessive or contains a misprint.
V591. Non-void function should return a value.
V592. The expression was enclosed by parentheses twice: ((expression)). One pair of parentheses is unnecessary or misprint is present.
V593. Consider reviewing the expression of the 'A = B == C' kind. The expression is calculated as following: 'A = (B == C)'.
V594. The pointer steps out of array's bounds.
V595. The pointer was utilized before it was verified against nullptr. Check lines: N1, N2.
V596. The object was created but it is not being used. The 'throw' keyword could be missing.
V597. The compiler could delete the 'memset' function call, which is used to flush 'Foo' buffer. The RtlSecureZeroMemory() function should be used to erase the private data.
V598. The 'memset/memcpy' function is used to nullify/copy the fields of 'Foo' class. Virtual table pointer will be damaged by this.
V599. The virtual destructor is not present, although the 'Foo' class contains virtual functions.
V600. Consider inspecting the condition. The 'Foo' pointer is always not equal to NULL.
V601. An odd implicit type casting.
V602. Consider inspecting this expression. '<' possibly should be replaced with '<<'.
V603. The object was created but it is not being used. If you wish to call constructor, 'this->Foo::Foo(....)' should be used.
V604. It is odd that the number of iterations in the loop equals to the size of the pointer.
V605. Consider verifying the expression. An unsigned value is compared to the number - NN.
V606. Ownerless token 'Foo'.
V607. Ownerless expression 'Foo'.
V608. Recurring sequence of explicit type casts.
V609. Divide or mod by zero.
V610. Undefined behavior. Check the shift operator.
V611. The memory allocation and deallocation methods are incompatible.
V612. An unconditional 'break/continue/return/goto' within a loop.
V613. Strange pointer arithmetic with 'malloc/new'.
V614. Uninitialized variable 'Foo' used.
V615. An odd explicit conversion from 'float *' type to 'double *' type.
V616. The 'Foo' named constant with the value of 0 is used in the bitwise operation.
V617. Consider inspecting the condition. An argument of the '|' bitwise operation always contains a non-zero value.
V618. It's dangerous to call the 'Foo' function in such a manner, as the line being passed could contain format specification. The example of the safe code: printf("%s", str);
V619. An array is being utilized as a pointer to single object.
V620. It's unusual that the expression of sizeof(T)*N kind is being summed with the pointer to T type.
V621. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. It's possible that the loop will be executed incorrectly or won't be executed at all.
V622. Consider inspecting the 'switch' statement. It's possible that the first 'case' operator is missing.
V623. Consider inspecting the '?:' operator. A temporary object is being created and subsequently destroyed.
V624. The constant NN is being utilized. The resulting value could be inaccurate. Consider using the M_NN constant from <math.h>.
V625. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. Initial and final values of the iterator are the same.
V626. Consider checking for misprints. It's possible that ',' should be replaced by ';'.
V627. Consider inspecting the expression. The argument of sizeof() is the macro which expands to a number.
V628. It's possible that the line was commented out improperly, thus altering the program's operation logics.
V629. Consider inspecting the expression. Bit shifting of the 32-bit value with a subsequent expansion to the 64-bit type.
V630. The 'malloc' function is used to allocate memory for an array of objects which are classes containing constructors/destructors.
V631. Consider inspecting the 'Foo' function call. Defining an absolute path to the file or directory is considered a poor style.
V632. Consider inspecting the NN argument of the 'Foo' function. It is odd that the argument is of the 'T' type.
V633. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '!=' should be used here.
V634. The priority of the '+' operation is higher than that of the '<<' operation. It's possible that parentheses should be used in the expression.
V635. Consider inspecting the expression. The length should probably be multiplied by the sizeof(wchar_t).
V636. The expression was implicitly cast from integer type to real type. Consider utilizing an explicit type cast to avoid overflow or loss of a fractional part.
V637. Two opposite conditions were encountered. The second condition is always false.
V638. A terminal null is present inside a string. The '\0xNN' characters were encountered. Probably meant: '\xNN'.
V639. Consider inspecting the expression for function call. It is possible that one of the closing ')' parentheses was positioned incorrectly.
V640. The code's operational logic does not correspond with its formatting.
V641. The buffer size is not a multiple of the element size.
V642. Saving the function result inside the 'byte' type variable is inappropriate. The significant bits could be lost breaking the program's logic.
V643. Unusual pointer arithmetic. The value of the 'char' type is being added to the string pointer.
V644. A suspicious function declaration. It is possible that the T type object was meant to be created.
V645. The function call could lead to the buffer overflow. The bounds should not contain the size of the buffer, but a number of characters it can hold.
V646. Consider inspecting the application's logic. It's possible that 'else' keyword is missing.
V647. The value of 'A' type is assigned to the pointer of 'B' type.
V648. Priority of the '&&' operation is higher than that of the '||' operation.
V649. There are two 'if' statements with identical conditional expressions. The first 'if' statement contains function return. This means that the second 'if' statement is senseless.
V650. Type casting operation is utilized 2 times in succession. Next, the '+' operation is executed. Probably meant: (T1)((T2)a + b).
V651. An odd operation of the 'sizeof(X)/sizeof(T)' kind is performed, where 'X' is of the 'class' type.
V652. The operation is executed 3 or more times in succession.
V653. A suspicious string consisting of two parts is used for the initialization. It is possible that a comma is missing.
V654. The condition of loop is always true/false.
V655. The strings were concatenated but are not utilized. Consider inspecting the expression.
V656. Variables are initialized through the call to the same function. It's probably an error or un-optimized code.
V657. It's odd that this function always returns one and the same value of NN.
V658. A value is being subtracted from the unsigned variable. This can result in an overflow. In such a case, the comparison operation can potentially behave unexpectedly.
V659. Declarations of functions with 'Foo' name differ in the 'const' keyword only, but the bodies of these functions have different composition. This is suspicious and can possibly be an error.
V660. The program contains an unused label and a function call: 'CC:AA()'. It's possible that the following was intended: 'CC::AA()'.
V661. A suspicious expression 'A[B < C]'. Probably meant 'A[B] < C'.
V662. Consider inspecting the loop expression. Different containers are utilized for setting up initial and final values of the iterator.
V663. Infinite loop is possible. The 'cin.eof()' condition is insufficient to break from the loop. Consider adding the 'cin.fail()' function call to the conditional expression.
V664. The pointer is being dereferenced on the initialization list before it is verified against null inside the body of the constructor function.
V665. Possibly, the usage of '#pragma warning(default: X)' is incorrect in this context. The '#pragma warning(push/pop)' should be used instead.
V666. Consider inspecting NN argument of the function 'Foo'. It is possible that the value does not correspond with the length of a string which was passed with the YY argument.
V667. The 'throw' operator does not possess any arguments and is not situated within the 'catch' block.
V668. There is no sense in testing the pointer against null, as the memory was allocated using the 'new' operator. The exception will be generated in the case of memory allocation error.
V669. The argument is a non-constant reference. The analyzer is unable to determine the position at which this argument is being modified. It is possible that the function contains an error.
V670. An uninitialized class member is used to initialize another member. Remember that members are initialized in the order of their declarations inside a class.
V671. It is possible that the 'swap' function interchanges a variable with itself.
V672. There is probably no need in creating a new variable here. One of the function's arguments possesses the same name and this argument is a reference.
V673. More than N bits are required to store the value, but the expression evaluates to the T type which can only hold K bits.
V674. The expression contains a suspicious mix of integer and real types.
V675. Writing into the read-only memory.
V676. It is incorrect to compare the variable of BOOL type with TRUE.
V677. Custom declaration of a standard type. The declaration from system header files should be used instead.
V678. An object is used as an argument to its own method. Consider checking the first actual argument of the 'Foo' function.
V679. The 'X' variable was not initialized. This variable is passed by a reference to the 'Foo' function in which its value will be utilized.
V680. The 'delete A, B' expression only destroys the 'A' object. Then the ',' operator returns a resulting value from the right side of the expression.
V681. The language standard does not define an order in which the 'Foo' functions will be called during evaluation of arguments.
V682. Suspicious literal is present: '/r'. It is possible that a backslash should be used here instead: '\r'.
V683. Consider inspecting the loop expression. It is possible that the 'i' variable should be incremented instead of the 'n' variable.
V684. A value of variable is not modified. Consider inspecting the expression. It is possible that '1' should be present instead of '0'.
V685. Consider inspecting the return statement. The expression contains a comma.
V686. A pattern was detected: A || (A && ...). The expression is excessive or contains a logical error.
V687. Size of an array calculated by the sizeof() operator was added to a pointer. It is possible that the number of elements should be calculated by sizeof(A)/sizeof(A[0]).
V688. The 'foo' local variable possesses the same name as one of the class members, which can result in a confusion.
V689. The destructor of the 'Foo' class is not declared as a virtual. It is possible that a smart pointer will not destroy an object correctly.
V690. The class implements a copy constructor/operator=, but lacks the operator=/copy constructor.
V691. Empirical analysis. It is possible that a typo is present inside the string literal. The 'foo' word is suspicious.
V692. An inappropriate attempt to append a null character to a string. To determine the length of a string by 'strlen' function correctly, a string ending with a null terminator should be used in the first place.
V693. Consider inspecting conditional expression of the loop. It is possible that 'i < X.size()' should be used instead of 'X.size()'.
V694. The condition (ptr - const_value) is only false if the value of a pointer equals a magic constant.
V695. Range intersections are possible within conditional expressions.
V696. The 'continue' operator will terminate 'do { ... } while (FALSE)' loop because the condition is always false.
V697. A number of elements in the allocated array is equal to size of a pointer in bytes.
V698. strcmp()-like functions can return not only the values -1, 0 and 1, but any values.
V699. Consider inspecting the 'foo = bar = baz ? .... : ....' expression. It is possible that 'foo = bar == baz ? .... : ....' should be used here instead.
V700. Consider inspecting the 'T foo = foo = x;' expression. It is odd that variable is initialized through itself.
V701. realloc() possible leak: when realloc() fails in allocating memory, original pointer is lost. Consider assigning realloc() to a temporary pointer.
V702. Classes should always be derived from std::exception (and alike) as 'public'.
V703. It is odd that the 'foo' field in derived class overwrites field in base class.
V704. The 'this == 0' comparison should be avoided - this comparison is always false on newer compilers.
V705. It is possible that 'else' block was forgotten or commented out, thus altering the program's operation logics.
V706. Suspicious division: sizeof(X) / Value. Size of every element in X array does not equal to divisor.
V707. Giving short names to global variables is considered to be bad practice.
V708. Dangerous construction is used: 'm[x] = m.size()', where 'm' is of 'T' class. This may lead to undefined behavior.
V709. Suspicious comparison found: 'a == b == c'. Remember that 'a == b == c' is not equal to 'a == b && b == c'.
V710. Suspicious declaration found. There is no point to declare constant reference to a number.
V711. It is dangerous to create a local variable within a loop with a same name as a variable controlling this loop.
V712. Be advised that compiler may delete this cycle or make it infinity. Use volatile variable(s) or synchronization primitives to avoid this.
V713. The pointer was utilized in the logical expression before it was verified against nullptr in the same logical expression.
V714. Variable is not passed into foreach loop by a reference, but its value is changed inside of the loop.
V715. The 'while' operator has empty body. Suspicious pattern detected.
V716. Suspicious type conversion: HRESULT -> BOOL (BOOL -> HRESULT).
V717. It is suspicious to cast object of base class V to derived class U.
V718. The 'Foo' function should not be called from 'DllMain' function.
V719. The switch statement does not cover all values of the enum.
V720. It is advised to utilize the 'SuspendThread' function only when developing a debugger (see documentation for details).
V721. The VARIANT_BOOL type is utilized incorrectly. The true value (VARIANT_TRUE) is defined as -1.
V722. An abnormality within similar comparisons. It is possible that a typo is present inside the expression.
V723. Function returns a pointer to the internal string buffer of a local object, which will be destroyed.
V724. Converting integers or pointers to BOOL can lead to a loss of high-order bits. Non-zero value can become 'FALSE'.
V725. A dangerous cast of 'this' to 'void*' type in the 'Base' class, as it is followed by a subsequent cast to 'Class' type.
V726. An attempt to free memory containing the 'int A[10]' array by using the 'free(A)' function.
V727. Return value of 'wcslen' function is not multiplied by 'sizeof(wchar_t)'.
V728. An excessive check can be simplified. The '||' operator is surrounded by opposite expressions 'x' and '!x'.
V729. Function body contains the 'X' label that is not used by any 'goto' statements.
V730. Not all members of a class are initialized inside the constructor.
V731. The variable of char type is compared with pointer to string.
V732. Unary minus operator does not modify a bool type value.
V733. It is possible that macro expansion resulted in incorrect evaluation order.
V734. An excessive expression. Examine the substrings "abc" and "abcd".
V735. Possibly an incorrect HTML. The "</XX>" closing tag was encountered, while the "</YY>" tag was expected.
V736. The behavior is undefined for arithmetic or comparisons with pointers that do not point to members of the same array.
V737. It is possible that ',' comma is missing at the end of the string.
V738. Temporary anonymous object is used.
V739. EOF should not be compared with a value of the 'char' type. Consider using the 'int' type.
V740. Because NULL is defined as 0, the exception is of the 'int' type. Keyword 'nullptr' could be used for 'pointer' type exception.
V741. The following pattern is used: throw (a, b);. It is possible that type name was omitted: throw MyException(a, b);.
V742. Function receives an address of a 'char' type variable instead of pointer to a buffer.
V743. The memory areas must not overlap. Use 'memmove' function.
V744. Temporary object is immediately destroyed after being created. Consider naming the object.
V745. A 'wchar_t *' type string is incorrectly converted to 'BSTR' type string.
V746. Object slicing. An exception should be caught by reference rather than by value.
V747. An odd expression inside parenthesis. It is possible that a function name is missing.
V748. Memory for 'getline' function should be allocated only by 'malloc' or 'realloc' functions. Consider inspecting the first parameter of 'getline' function.
V749. Destructor of the object will be invoked a second time after leaving the object's scope.
V750. BSTR string becomes invalid. Notice that BSTR strings store their length before start of the text.
V751. Parameter is not used inside function's body.
V752. Creating an object with placement new requires a buffer of large size.
V753. The '&=' operation always sets a value of 'Foo' variable to zero.
V754. The expression of 'foo(foo(x))' pattern is excessive or contains an error.
V755. Copying from unsafe data source. Buffer overflow is possible.
V756. The 'X' counter is not used inside a nested loop. Consider inspecting usage of 'Y' counter.
V757. It is possible that an incorrect variable is compared with null after type conversion using 'dynamic_cast'.
V758. Reference invalidated because of the destruction of the temporary object returned by the function.
V759. Violated order of exception handlers. Exception caught by handler for base class.
V760. Two identical text blocks detected. The second block starts with NN string.
V761. NN identical blocks were found.
V762. Consider inspecting virtual function arguments. See NN argument of function 'Foo' in derived class and base class.
V763. Parameter is always rewritten in function body before being used.
V764. Possible incorrect order of arguments passed to function.
V765. A compound assignment expression 'X += X + N' is suspicious. Consider inspecting it for a possible error.
V766. An item with the same key has already been added.
V767. Suspicious access to element by a constant index inside a loop.
V768. The variable is of enum type. It is odd that it is used as a variable of a Boolean-type.
V769. The pointer in the expression equals nullptr. The resulting value is meaningless and should not be used.
V770. Possible use of a left shift operator instead of a comparison operator.
V771. The '?:' operator uses constants from different enums.
V772. Calling the 'delete' operator for a void pointer will cause undefined behavior.
V773. The function was exited without releasing the pointer/handle. A memory/resource leak is possible.
V774. The pointer was used after the memory was released.
V775. It is odd that the BSTR data type is compared using a relational operator.
V776. Potentially infinite loop. The variable in the loop exit condition does not change its value between iterations.
V777. Dangerous widening type conversion from an array of derived-class objects to a base-class pointer.
V778. Two similar code fragments were found. Perhaps, this is a typo and 'X' variable should be used instead of 'Y'.
V779. Unreachable code detected. It is possible that an error is present.
V780. The object of non-passive (non-PDS) type cannot be used with the function.
V781. The value of the variable is checked after it was used. Perhaps there is a mistake in program logic. Check lines: N1, N2.
V782. It is pointless to compute the distance between the elements of different arrays.
V783. Dereferencing of invalid iterator 'X' might take place.
V784. The size of the bit mask is less than the size of the first operand. This will cause the loss of the higher bits.
V785. Constant expression in switch statement.
V786. Assigning the value C to the X variable looks suspicious. The value range of the variable: [A, B].
V787. A wrong variable is probably used as an index in the for statement.
V788. Review captured variable in lambda expression.
V789. Iterators for the container, used in the range-based for loop, become invalid upon a function call.
V790. It is odd that the assignment operator takes an object by a non-constant reference and returns this object.
V791. The initial value of the index in the nested loop equals 'i'. Consider using 'i + 1' instead.
V792. The function located to the right of the '|' and '&' operators will be called regardless of the value of the left operand. Consider using '||' and '&&' instead.
V793. It is odd that the result of the statement is a part of the condition. Perhaps, this statement should have been compared with something else.
V794. The assignment operator should be protected from the case of this == &src.
V795. Note that the size of the 'time_t' type is not 64 bits. After the year 2038, the program will work incorrectly.
V796. A 'break' statement is probably missing in a 'switch' statement.
V797. The function is used as if it returned a bool type. The return value of the function should probably be compared with std::string::npos.
V798. The size of the dynamic array can be less than the number of elements in the initializer.
V799. The variable is not used after memory has been allocated for it. Consider checking the use of this variable.
V1001. The variable is assigned but is not used by the end of the function.
V1002. A class, containing pointers, constructor and destructor, is copied by the automatically generated operator= or copy constructor.
V1003. The macro expression is dangerous, or it is suspicious.
V1004. The pointer was used unsafely after it was verified against nullptr.
V1005. The resource was acquired using 'X' function but was released using incompatible 'Y' function.
V1006. Several shared_ptr objects are initialized by the same pointer. A double memory deallocation will occur.
V1007. The value from the uninitialized optional is used. Probably it is a mistake.
V1008. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. No more than one iteration of the loop will be performed.
V1009. Check the array initialization. Only the first element is initialized explicitly.
V1010. Unchecked tainted data is used in expression.
V1011. Function execution could be deferred. Consider specifying execution policy explicitly.
V1012. The expression is always false. Overflow check is incorrect.
V1013. Suspicious subexpression in a sequence of similar comparisons.
V1014. Structures with members of real type are compared byte-wise.
V1015. Suspicious simultaneous use of bitwise and logical operators.
V1016. The value is out of range of enum values. This causes unspecified or undefined behavior.
V1017. Variable of the 'string_view' type references a temporary object which will be removed after evaluation of an expression.
V1018. Usage of a suspicious mutex wrapper. It is probably unused, uninitialized, or already locked.
V1019. Compound assignment expression is used inside condition.
V1020. Function exited without performing epilogue actions. It is possible that there is an error.
V1021. The variable is assigned the same value on several loop iterations.
V1022. An exception was thrown by pointer. Consider throwing it by value instead.
V1023. A pointer without owner is added to the container by the 'emplace_back' method. A memory leak will occur in case of an exception.
V1024. The stream is checked for EOF before reading from it, but is not checked after reading. Potential use of invalid data.
V1025. Rather than creating 'std::unique_lock' to lock on the mutex, a new variable with default value is created.
V1026. The variable is incremented in the loop. Undefined behavior will occur in case of signed integer overflow.
V1027. Pointer to an object of the class is cast to unrelated class.
V1028. Possible overflow. Consider casting operands, not the result.
V1029. Numeric Truncation Error. Return value of function is written to N-bit variable.
V1030. The variable is used after it was moved.
V1031. Function is not declared. The passing of data to or from this function may be affected.
V1032. Pointer is cast to a more strictly aligned pointer type.
V1033. Variable is declared as auto in C. Its default type is int.
V1034. Do not use real-type variables as loop counters.
V1035. Only values that are returned from fgetpos() can be used as arguments to fsetpos().
V1036. Potentially unsafe double-checked locking.
V1037. Two or more case-branches perform the same actions.
V1038. It's odd that a char or string literal is added to a pointer.
V1039. Character escape is used in multicharacter literal. This causes implementation-defined behavior.
V1040. Possible typo in the spelling of a pre-defined macro name.
V1041. Class member is initialized with dangling reference.
V1042. This file is marked with copyleft license, which requires you to open the derived source code.
V1043. A global object variable is declared in the header. Multiple copies of it will be created in all translation units that include this header file.
V1044. Loop break conditions do not depend on the number of iterations.
V1045. The DllMain function throws an exception. Consider wrapping the throw operator in a try..catch block.
V1046. Unsafe usage of the 'bool' and integer types together in the operation '&='.
V1047. Lifetime of the lambda is greater than lifetime of the local variable captured by reference.
V1048. Variable 'foo' was assigned the same value.
V1049. The 'foo' include guard is already defined in the 'bar1.h' header. The 'bar2.h' header will be excluded from compilation.
V1050. The uninitialized class member is used when initializing the base class.
V1051. Consider checking for misprints. It's possible that an assigned variable should be checked in the next condition.
V1052. Declaring virtual methods in a class marked as 'final' is pointless.
V1053. Calling the 'foo' virtual function in the constructor/destructor may lead to unexpected result at runtime.
V1054. Object slicing. Derived class object was copied to the base class object.
V1055. The 'sizeof' expression returns the size of the container type, not the number of elements. Consider using the 'size()' function.
V1056. The predefined identifier '__func__' always contains the string 'operator()' inside function body of the overloaded 'operator()'.
V1057. Pseudo random sequence is the same at every program run. Consider assigning the seed to a value not known at compile-time.
V1058. Nonsensical comparison of two different functions' addresses.
V1059. Macro name overrides a keyword/reserved name. This may lead to undefined behavior.
V1060. Passing 'BSTR ' to the 'SysAllocString' function may lead to incorrect object creation.
V1061. Extending 'std' or 'posix' namespace may result in undefined behavior.
V1062. Class defines a custom new or delete operator. The opposite operator must also be defined.
V1063. The modulo by 1 operation is meaningless. The result will always be zero.
V1064. The left operand of integer division is less than the right one. The result will always be zero.
V1065. Expression can be simplified: check similar operands.
V1066. The 'SysFreeString' function should be called only for objects of the 'BSTR' type.
V1067. Throwing from exception constructor may lead to unexpected behavior.
V1068. Do not define an unnamed namespace in a header file.

General Analysis (C#)

V3001. There are identical sub-expressions to the left and to the right of the 'foo' operator.
V3002. The switch statement does not cover all values of the enum.
V3003. The use of 'if (A) {...} else if (A) {...}' pattern was detected. There is a probability of logical error presence.
V3004. The 'then' statement is equivalent to the 'else' statement.
V3005. The 'x' variable is assigned to itself.
V3006. The object was created but it is not being used. The 'throw' keyword could be missing.
V3007. Odd semicolon ';' after 'if/for/while' operator.
V3008. The 'x' variable is assigned values twice successively. Perhaps this is a mistake.
V3009. It's odd that this method always returns one and the same value of NN.
V3010. The return value of function 'Foo' is required to be utilized.
V3011. Two opposite conditions were encountered. The second condition is always false.
V3012. The '?:' operator, regardless of its conditional expression, always returns one and the same value.
V3013. It is odd that the body of 'Foo_1' function is fully equivalent to the body of 'Foo_2' function.
V3014. It is likely that a wrong variable is being incremented inside the 'for' operator. Consider reviewing 'X'.
V3015. It is likely that a wrong variable is being compared inside the 'for' operator. Consider reviewing 'X'.
V3016. The variable 'X' is being used for this loop and for the outer loop.
V3017. A pattern was detected: A || (A && ...). The expression is excessive or contains a logical error.
V3018. Consider inspecting the application's logic. It's possible that 'else' keyword is missing.
V3019. It is possible that an incorrect variable is compared with null after type conversion using 'as' keyword.
V3020. An unconditional 'break/continue/return/goto' within a loop.
V3021. There are two 'if' statements with identical conditional expressions. The first 'if' statement contains method return. This means that the second 'if' statement is senseless.
V3022. Expression is always true/false.
V3023. Consider inspecting this expression. The expression is excessive or contains a misprint.
V3024. An odd precise comparison. Consider using a comparison with defined precision: Math.Abs(A - B) < Epsilon or Math.Abs(A - B) > Epsilon.
V3025. Incorrect format. Consider checking the N format items of the 'Foo' function.
V3026. The constant NN is being utilized. The resulting value could be inaccurate. Consider using the KK constant.
V3027. The variable was utilized in the logical expression before it was verified against null in the same logical expression.
V3028. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. Initial and final values of the iterator are the same.
V3029. The conditional expressions of the 'if' statements situated alongside each other are identical.
V3030. Recurring check. This condition was already verified in previous line.
V3031. An excessive check can be simplified. The operator '||' operator is surrounded by opposite expressions 'x' and '!x'.
V3032. Waiting on this expression is unreliable, as compiler may optimize some of the variables. Use volatile variable(s) or synchronization primitives to avoid this.
V3033. It is possible that this 'else' branch must apply to the previous 'if' statement.
V3034. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '!=' should be used here.
V3035. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '+=' should be used here.
V3036. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '-=' should be used here.
V3037. An odd sequence of assignments of this kind: A = B; B = A;
V3038. The argument was passed to method several times. It is possible that another argument should be passed instead.
V3039. Consider inspecting the 'Foo' function call. Defining an absolute path to the file or directory is considered a poor style.
V3040. The expression contains a suspicious mix of integer and real types.
V3041. The expression was implicitly cast from integer type to real type. Consider utilizing an explicit type cast to avoid the loss of a fractional part.
V3042. Possible NullReferenceException. The '?.' and '.' operators are used for accessing members of the same object.
V3043. The code's operational logic does not correspond with its formatting.
V3044. WPF: writing and reading are performed on a different Dependency Properties.
V3045. WPF: the names of the property registered for DependencyProperty, and of the property used to access it, do not correspond with each other.
V3046. WPF: the type registered for DependencyProperty does not correspond with the type of the property used to access it.
V3047. WPF: A class containing registered property does not correspond with a type that is passed as the ownerType.type.
V3048. WPF: several Dependency Properties are registered with a same name within the owner type.
V3049. WPF: readonly field of 'DependencyProperty' type is not initialized.
V3050. Possibly an incorrect HTML. The </XX> closing tag was encountered, while the </YY> tag was expected.
V3051. An excessive type cast or check. The object is already of the same type.
V3052. The original exception object was swallowed. Stack of original exception could be lost.
V3053. An excessive expression. Examine the substrings "abc" and "abcd".
V3054. Potentially unsafe double-checked locking. Use volatile variable(s) or synchronization primitives to avoid this.
V3055. Suspicious assignment inside the condition expression of 'if/while/for' operator.
V3056. Consider reviewing the correctness of 'X' item's usage.
V3057. Function receives an odd argument.
V3058. An item with the same key has already been added.
V3059. Consider adding '[Flags]' attribute to the enum.
V3060. A value of variable is not modified. Consider inspecting the expression. It is possible that other value should be present instead of '0'.
V3061. Parameter 'A' is always rewritten in method body before being used.
V3062. An object is used as an argument to its own method. Consider checking the first actual argument of the 'Foo' method.
V3063. A part of conditional expression is always true/false if it is evaluated.
V3064. Division or mod division by zero.
V3065. Parameter is not utilized inside method's body.
V3066. Possible incorrect order of arguments passed to method.
V3067. It is possible that 'else' block was forgotten or commented out, thus altering the program's operation logics.
V3068. Calling overrideable class member from constructor is dangerous.
V3069. It's possible that the line was commented out improperly, thus altering the program's operation logics.
V3070. Uninitialized variables are used when initializing the 'A' variable.
V3071. The object is returned from inside 'using' block. 'Dispose' will be invoked before exiting method.
V3072. The 'A' class containing IDisposable members does not itself implement IDisposable.
V3073. Not all IDisposable members are properly disposed. Call 'Dispose' when disposing 'A' class.
V3074. The 'A' class contains 'Dispose' method. Consider making it implement 'IDisposable' interface.
V3075. The operation is executed 2 or more times in succession.
V3076. Comparison with 'double.NaN' is meaningless. Use 'double.IsNaN()' method instead.
V3077. Property setter / event accessor does not utilize its 'value' parameter.
V3078. Original sorting order will be lost after repetitive call to 'OrderBy' method. Use 'ThenBy' method to preserve the original sorting.
V3079. The 'ThreadStatic' attribute is applied to a non-static 'A' field and will be ignored.
V3080. Possible null dereference.
V3081. The 'X' counter is not used inside a nested loop. Consider inspecting usage of 'Y' counter.
V3082. The 'Thread' object is created but is not started. It is possible that a call to 'Start' method is missing.
V3083. Unsafe invocation of event, NullReferenceException is possible. Consider assigning event to a local variable before invoking it.
V3084. Anonymous function is used to unsubscribe from event. No handlers will be unsubscribed, as a separate delegate instance is created for each anonymous function declaration.
V3085. The name of 'X' field/property in a nested type is ambiguous. The outer type contains static field/property with identical name.
V3086. Variables are initialized through the call to the same function. It's probably an error or un-optimized code.
V3087. Type of variable enumerated in 'foreach' is not guaranteed to be castable to the type of collection's elements.
V3088. The expression was enclosed by parentheses twice: ((expression)). One pair of parentheses is unnecessary or misprint is present.
V3089. Initializer of a field marked by [ThreadStatic] attribute will be called once on the first accessing thread. The field will have default value on different threads.
V3090. Unsafe locking on an object.
V3091. Empirical analysis. It is possible that a typo is present inside the string literal. The 'foo' word is suspicious.
V3092. Range intersections are possible within conditional expressions.
V3093. The operator evaluates both operands. Perhaps a short-circuit operator should be used instead.
V3094. Possible exception when deserializing type. The Ctor(SerializationInfo, StreamingContext) constructor is missing.
V3095. The object was used before it was verified against null. Check lines: N1, N2.
V3096. Possible exception when serializing type. [Serializable] attribute is missing.
V3097. Possible exception: type marked by [Serializable] contains non-serializable members not marked by [NonSerialized].
V3098. The 'continue' operator will terminate 'do { ... } while (false)' loop because the condition is always false.
V3099. Not all the members of type are serialized inside 'GetObjectData' method.
V3100. NullReferenceException is possible. Unhandled exceptions in destructor lead to termination of runtime.
V3101. Potential resurrection of 'this' object instance from destructor. Without re-registering for finalization, destructor will not be called a second time on resurrected object.
V3102. Suspicious access to element by a constant index inside a loop.
V3103. A private Ctor(SerializationInfo, StreamingContext) constructor in unsealed type will not be accessible when deserializing derived types.
V3104. The 'GetObjectData' implementation in unsealed type is not virtual, incorrect serialization of derived type is possible.
V3105. The 'a' variable was used after it was assigned through null-conditional operator. NullReferenceException is possible.
V3106. Possibly index is out of bound.
V3107. Identical expression to the left and to the right of compound assignment.
V3108. It is not recommended to return null or throw exceptions from 'ToString()' method.
V3109. The same sub-expression is present on both sides of the operator. The expression is incorrect or it can be simplified.
V3110. Possible infinite recursion.
V3111. Checking value for null will always return false when generic type is instantiated with a value type.
V3112. An abnormality within similar comparisons. It is possible that a typo is present inside the expression.
V3113. Consider inspecting the loop expression. It is possible that different variables are used inside initializer and iterator.
V3114. IDisposable object is not disposed before method returns.
V3115. It is not recommended to throw exceptions from 'Equals(object obj)' method.
V3116. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. It's possible that the loop will be executed incorrectly or won't be executed at all.
V3117. Constructor parameter is not used.
V3118. A component of TimeSpan is used, which does not represent full time interval. Possibly 'Total*' value was intended instead.
V3119. Calling a virtual (overridden) event may lead to unpredictable behavior. Consider implementing event accessors explicitly or use 'sealed' keyword.
V3120. Potentially infinite loop. The variable from the loop exit condition does not change its value between iterations.
V3121. An enumeration was declared with 'Flags' attribute, but does not set any initializers to override default values.
V3122. Uppercase (lowercase) string is compared with a different lowercase (uppercase) string.
V3123. Perhaps the '??' operator works in a different way than it was expected. Its priority is lower than priority of other operators in its left part.
V3124. Appending an element and checking for key uniqueness is performed on two different variables.
V3125. The object was used after it was verified against null. Check lines: N1, N2.
V3126. Type implementing IEquatable<T> interface does not override 'GetHashCode' method.
V3127. Two similar code fragments were found. Perhaps, this is a typo and 'X' variable should be used instead of 'Y'.
V3128. The field (property) is used before it is initialized in constructor.
V3129. The value of the captured variable will be overwritten on the next iteration of the loop in each instance of anonymous function that captures it.
V3130. Priority of the '&&' operator is higher than that of the '||' operator. Possible missing parentheses.
V3131. The expression is checked for compatibility with the type 'A', but is casted to the 'B' type.
V3132. A terminal null is present inside a string. The '\0xNN' characters were encountered. Probably meant: '\xNN'.
V3133. Postfix increment/decrement is senseless because this variable is overwritten.
V3134. Shift by N bits is greater than the size of type.
V3135. The initial value of the index in the nested loop equals 'i'. Consider using 'i + 1' instead.
V3136. Constant expression in switch statement.
V3137. The variable is assigned but is not used by the end of the function.
V3138. String literal contains potential interpolated expression.
V3139. Two or more case-branches perform the same actions.
V3140. Property accessors use different backing fields.
V3141. Expression under 'throw' is a potential null, which can lead to NullReferenceException.
V3142. Unreachable code detected. It is possible that an error is present.
V3143. The 'value' parameter is rewritten inside a property setter, and is not used after that.
V3144. This file is marked with copyleft license, which requires you to open the derived source code.
V3145. Unsafe dereference of a WeakReference target. The object could have been garbage collected before the 'Target' property was accessed.
V3146. Possible null dereference. A method can return default null value.
V3147. Non-atomic modification of volatile variable.
V3148. Casting potential 'null' value to a value type can lead to NullReferenceException.
V3149. Dereferencing the result of 'as' operator can lead to NullReferenceException.
V3150. Loop break conditions do not depend on the number of iterations.
V3151. Potential division by zero. Variable was used as a divisor before it was compared to zero. Check lines: N1, N2.
V3152. Potential division by zero. Variable was compared to zero before it was used as a divisor. Check lines: N1, N2.
V3153. Dereferencing the result of null-conditional access operator can lead to NullReferenceException. Consider removing parentheses around null-conditional access expression.
V3154. The 'a % b' expression always evaluates to 0.
V3155. The expression is incorrect or it can be simplified.
V3156. The argument of the method is not expected to be null.
V3157. Suspicious division. Absolute value of the left operand is less than the right operand.
V3158. Suspicious division. Absolute values of both operands are equal.
V3159. Modified value of the operand is not used after the increment/decrement operation.
V3160. Argument of incorrect type is passed to the 'Enum.HasFlag' method.
V3161. Comparing value type variables with 'ReferenceEquals' is incorrect because compared values will be boxed.
V3162. Suspicious return of an always empty collection.
V3163. An exception handling block does not contain any code.
V3164. Exception classes should be publicly accessible.
V3165. The expression of the 'char' type is passed as an argument of the 'A' type whereas similar overload with the string parameter exists.
V3166. Calling the 'SingleOrDefault' method may lead to 'InvalidOperationException'.
V5601. OWASP. Storing credentials inside source code can lead to security issues.

General Analysis (Java)

V5301. An exception handling block does not contain any code.
V5302. Exception classes should be publicly accessible.
V6001. There are identical sub-expressions to the left and to the right of the 'foo' operator.
V6002. The switch statement does not cover all values of the enum.
V6003. The use of 'if (A) {...} else if (A) {...}' pattern was detected. There is a probability of logical error presence.
V6004. The 'then' statement is equivalent to the 'else' statement.
V6005. The 'x' variable is assigned to itself.
V6006. The object was created but it is not being used. The 'throw' keyword could be missing.
V6007. Expression is always true/false.
V6008. Potential null dereference.
V6009. Function receives an odd argument.
V6010. The return value of function 'Foo' is required to be utilized.
V6011. The expression contains a suspicious mix of integer and real types.
V6012. The '?:' operator, regardless of its conditional expression, always returns one and the same value.
V6013. Comparison of arrays, strings, collections by reference. Possibly an equality comparison was intended.
V6014. It's odd that this method always returns one and the same value of NN.
V6015. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '!='/'-='/'+=' should be used here.
V6016. Suspicious access to element by a constant index inside a loop.
V6017. The 'X' counter is not used inside a nested loop. Consider inspecting usage of 'Y' counter.
V6018. Constant expression in switch statement.
V6019. Unreachable code detected. It is possible that an error is present.
V6020. Division or mod division by zero.
V6021. The value is assigned to the 'x' variable but is not used.
V6022. Parameter is not used inside method's body.
V6023. Parameter 'A' is always rewritten in method body before being used.
V6024. The 'continue' operator will terminate 'do { ... } while (false)' loop because the condition is always false.
V6025. Possibly index is out of bound.
V6026. This value is already assigned to the 'b' variable.
V6027. Variables are initialized through the call to the same function. It's probably an error or un-optimized code.
V6028. Identical expression to the left and to the right of compound assignment.
V6029. Possible incorrect order of arguments passed to method.
V6030. The function located to the right of the '|' and '&' operators will be called regardless of the value of the left operand. Consider using '||' and '&&' instead.
V6031. The variable 'X' is being used for this loop and for the outer loop.
V6032. It is odd that the body of 'Foo_1' function is fully equivalent to the body of 'Foo_2' function.
V6033. An item with the same key has already been added.
V6034. Shift by N bits is inconsistent with the size of type.
V6035. Double negation is present in the expression: !!x.
V6036. The value from the uninitialized optional is used.
V6037. An unconditional 'break/continue/return/goto' within a loop.
V6038. Comparison with 'double.NaN' is meaningless. Use 'double.isNaN()' method instead.
V6039. There are two 'if' statements with identical conditional expressions. The first 'if' statement contains method return. This means that the second 'if' statement is senseless.
V6040. The code's operational logic does not correspond with its formatting.
V6041. Suspicious assignment inside the conditional expression of 'if/while/do...while' statement.
V6042. The expression is checked for compatibility with type 'A', but is cast to type 'B'.
V6043. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. Initial and final values of the iterator are the same.
V6044. Postfix increment/decrement is senseless because this variable is overwritten.
V6045. Suspicious subexpression in a sequence of similar comparisons.
V6046. Incorrect format. Consider checking the N format items of the 'Foo' function.
V6047. It is possible that this 'else' branch must apply to the previous 'if' statement.
V6048. This expression can be simplified. One of the operands in the operation equals NN. Probably it is a mistake.
V6049. Classes that define 'equals' method must also define 'hashCode' method.
V6050. Class initialization cycle is present.
V6051. Use of jump statements in 'finally' block can lead to the loss of unhandled exceptions.
V6052. Calling an overridden method in parent-class constructor may lead to use of uninitialized data.
V6053. Collection is modified while iteration is in progress. ConcurrentModificationException may occur.
V6054. Classes should not be compared by their name.
V6055. Expression inside assert statement can change object's state.
V6056. Implementation of 'compareTo' overloads the method from a base class. Possibly, an override was intended.
V6057. Consider inspecting this expression. The expression is excessive or contains a misprint.
V6058. Comparing objects of incompatible types.
V6059. Odd use of special character in regular expression. Possibly, it was intended to be escaped.
V6060. The reference was used before it was verified against null.
V6061. The used constant value is represented by an octal form.
V6062. Possible infinite recursion.
V6063. Odd semicolon ';' after 'if/for/while' operator.
V6064. Suspicious invocation of Thread.run().
V6065. A non-serializable class should not be serialized.
V6066. Passing objects of incompatible types to the method of collection.
V6067. Two or more case-branches perform the same actions.
V6068. Suspicious use of BigDecimal class.
V6069. Unsigned right shift assignment of negative 'byte' / 'short' value.
V6070. Unsafe synchronization on an object.
V6071. This file is marked with copyleft license, which requires you to open the derived source code.
V6072. Two similar code fragments were found. Perhaps, this is a typo and 'X' variable should be used instead of 'Y'.
V6073. It is not recommended to return null or throw exceptions from 'toString' / 'clone' methods.
V6074. Non-atomic modification of volatile variable.
V6075. The signature of method 'X' does not conform to serialization requirements.
V6076. Recurrent serialization will use cached object state from first serialization.
V6077. A suspicious label is present inside a switch(). It is possible that these are misprints and 'default:' label should be used instead.
V6078. Potential Java SE API compatibility issue.
V6079. Value of variable is checked after use. Potential logical error is present. Check lines: N1, N2.
V6080. Consider checking for misprints. It's possible that an assigned variable should be checked in the next condition.
V6081. Annotation that does not have 'RUNTIME' retention policy will not be accessible through Reflection API.
V6082. Unsafe double-checked locking.
V6083. Serialization order of fields should be preserved during deserialization.
V6084. Suspicious return of an always empty collection.
V6085. An abnormality within similar comparisons. It is possible that a typo is present inside the expression.
V6086. Suspicious code formatting. 'else' keyword is probably missing.
V6087. InvalidClassException may occur during deserialization.
V6088. Result of this expression will be implicitly cast to 'Type'. Check if program logic handles it correctly.
V6089. It's possible that the line was commented out improperly, thus altering the program's operation logics.
V6090. Field 'A' is being used before it was initialized.
V6091. Suspicious getter/setter implementation. The 'A' field should probably be returned/assigned instead.
V6092. A resource is returned from try-with-resources statement. It will be closed before the method exits.
V6093. Automatic unboxing of a variable may cause NullPointerException.
V6094. The expression was implicitly cast from integer type to real type. Consider utilizing an explicit type cast to avoid the loss of a fractional part.
V6095. Thread.sleep() inside synchronized block/method may cause decreased performance.
V6096. An odd precise comparison. Consider using a comparison with defined precision: Math.abs(A - B) < Epsilon or Math.abs(A - B) > Epsilon.
V6097. Lowercase 'L' at the end of a long literal can be mistaken for '1'.
V6098. The method does not override another method from the base class.
V6099. The initial value of the index in the nested loop equals 'i'. Consider using 'i + 1' instead.
V6100. An object is used as an argument to its own method. Consider checking the first actual argument of the 'Foo' method.
V6101. compareTo()-like methods can return not only the values -1, 0 and 1, but any values.
V6102. Inconsistent synchronization of a field. Consider synchronizing the field on all usages.
V6103. Ignored InterruptedException could lead to delayed thread shutdown.

Diagnosis of micro-optimizations (C++)

V801. Decreased performance. It is better to redefine the N function argument as a reference. Consider replacing 'const T' with 'const .. &T' / 'const .. *T'.
V802. On 32-bit/64-bit platform, structure size can be reduced from N to K bytes by rearranging the fields according to their sizes in decreasing order.
V803. Decreased performance. It is more effective to use the prefix form of ++it. Replace iterator++ with ++iterator.
V804. Decreased performance. The 'Foo' function is called twice in the specified expression to calculate length of the same string.
V805. Decreased performance. It is inefficient to identify an empty string by using 'strlen(str) > 0' construct. A more efficient way is to check: str[0] != '\0'.
V806. Decreased performance. The expression of strlen(MyStr.c_str()) kind can be rewritten as MyStr.length().
V807. Decreased performance. Consider creating a pointer/reference to avoid using the same expression repeatedly.
V808. An array/object was declared but was not utilized.
V809. Verifying that a pointer value is not NULL is not required. The 'if (ptr != NULL)' check can be removed.
V810. Decreased performance. The 'A' function was called several times with identical arguments. The result should possibly be saved to a temporary variable, which then could be used while calling the 'B' function.
V811. Decreased performance. Excessive type casting: string -> char * -> string.
V812. Decreased performance. Ineffective use of the 'count' function. It can possibly be replaced by the call to the 'find' function.
V813. Decreased performance. The argument should probably be rendered as a constant pointer/reference.
V814. Decreased performance. The 'strlen' function was called multiple times inside the body of a loop.
V815. Decreased performance. Consider replacing the expression 'AA' with 'BB'.
V816. It is more efficient to catch exception by reference rather than by value.
V817. It is more efficient to search for 'X' character rather than a string.
V818. It is more efficient to use an initialization list rather than an assignment operator.
V819. Decreased performance. Memory is allocated and released multiple times inside the loop body.
V820. The variable is not used after copying. Copying can be replaced with move/swap for optimization.
V821. The variable can be constructed in a lower level scope.
V822. Decreased performance. A new object is created, while a reference to an object is expected.
V823. Decreased performance. Object may be created in-place in a container. Consider replacing methods: 'insert' -> 'emplace', 'push_*' -> 'emplace_*'.
V824. It is recommended to use the 'make_unique/make_shared' function to create smart pointers.
V825. Expression is equivalent to moving one unique pointer to another. Consider using 'std::move' instead.
V826. Consider replacing standard container with a different one.
V827. Maximum size of a vector is known at compile time. Consider pre-allocating it by calling reserve(N).
V828. Decreased performance. Moving an object in a return statement prevents copy elision.
V829. Lifetime of the heap-allocated variable is limited to the current function's scope. Consider allocating it on the stack instead.
V830. Decreased performance. Consider replacing the use of 'std::optional::value()' with either the '*' or '->' operator.
V831. Decreased performance. Consider replacing the call to the 'at()' method with the 'operator[]'.

Diagnosis of 64-bit errors (Viva64, C++)

V101. Implicit assignment type conversion to memsize type.
V102. Usage of non memsize type for pointer arithmetic.
V103. Implicit type conversion from memsize type to 32-bit type.
V104. Implicit type conversion to memsize type in an arithmetic expression.
V105. N operand of '?:' operation: implicit type conversion to memsize type.
V106. Implicit type conversion N argument of function 'foo' to memsize type.
V107. Implicit type conversion N argument of function 'foo' to 32-bit type.
V108. Incorrect index type: 'foo[not a memsize-type]'. Use memsize type instead.
V109. Implicit type conversion of return value to memsize type.
V110. Implicit type conversion of return value from memsize type to 32-bit type.
V111. Call of function 'foo' with variable number of arguments. N argument has memsize type.
V112. Dangerous magic number N used.
V113. Implicit type conversion from memsize to double type or vice versa.
V114. Dangerous explicit type pointer conversion.
V115. Memsize type is used for throw.
V116. Memsize type is used for catch.
V117. Memsize type is used in the union.
V118. malloc() function accepts a dangerous expression in the capacity of an argument.
V119. More than one sizeof() operator is used in one expression.
V120. Member operator[] of object 'foo' is declared with 32-bit type argument, but is called with memsize type argument.
V121. Implicit conversion of the type of 'new' operator's argument to size_t type.
V122. Memsize type is used in the struct/class.
V123. Allocation of memory by the pattern "(X*)malloc(sizeof(Y))" where the sizes of X and Y types are not equal.
V124. Function 'Foo' writes/reads 'N' bytes. The alignment rules and type sizes have been changed. Consider reviewing this value.
V125. It is not advised to declare type 'T' as 32-bit type.
V126. Be advised that the size of the type 'long' varies between LLP64/LP64 data models.
V127. An overflow of the 32-bit variable is possible inside a long cycle which utilizes a memsize-type loop counter.
V128. A variable of the memsize type is read from a stream. Consider verifying the compatibility of 32 and 64 bit versions of the application in the context of a stored data.
V201. Explicit conversion from 32-bit integer type to memsize type.
V202. Explicit conversion from memsize type to 32-bit integer type.
V203. Explicit type conversion from memsize to double type or vice versa.
V204. Explicit conversion from 32-bit integer type to pointer type.
V205. Explicit conversion of pointer type to 32-bit integer type.
V206. Explicit conversion from 'void *' to 'int *'.
V207. A 32-bit variable is utilized as a reference to a pointer. A write outside the bounds of this variable may occur.
V220. Suspicious sequence of types castings: memsize -> 32-bit integer -> memsize.
V221. Suspicious sequence of types castings: pointer -> memsize -> 32-bit integer.
V301. Unexpected function overloading behavior. See N argument of function 'foo' in derived class 'derived' and base class 'base'.
V302. Member operator[] of 'foo' class has a 32-bit type argument. Use memsize-type here.
V303. The function is deprecated in the Win64 system. It is safer to use the 'foo' function.

Customers Specific Requests (C++)

V2001. Consider using the extended version of the 'foo' function here.
V2002. Consider using the 'Ptr' version of the 'foo' function here.
V2003. Explicit conversion from 'float/double' type to signed integer type.
V2004. Explicit conversion from 'float/double' type to unsigned integer type.
V2005. C-style explicit type casting is utilized. Consider using: static_cast/const_cast/reinterpret_cast.
V2006. Implicit type conversion from enum type to integer type.
V2007. This expression can be simplified. One of the operands in the operation equals NN. Probably it is a mistake.
V2008. Cyclomatic complexity: NN. Consider refactoring the 'Foo' function.
V2009. Consider passing the 'Foo' argument as a pointer/reference to const.
V2010. Handling of two different exception types is identical.
V2011. Consider inspecting signed and unsigned function arguments. See NN argument of function 'Foo' in derived class and base class.
V2012. Possibility of decreased performance. It is advised to pass arguments to std::unary_function/std::binary_function template as references.
V2013. Consider inspecting the correctness of handling the N argument in the 'Foo' function.
V2014. Don't use terminating functions in library code.
V2015. Identifiers that start with '__' or '_[A-Z]' are reserved.

MISRA errors

V2501. MISRA. Octal constants should not be used.
V2502. MISRA. The 'goto' statement should not be used.
V2503. MISRA. Implicitly specified enumeration constants should be unique – consider specifying non-unique constants explicitly.
V2504. MISRA. Size of an array is not specified.
V2505. MISRA. The 'goto' statement shouldn't jump to a label declared earlier.
V2506. MISRA. A function should have a single point of exit at the end.
V2507. MISRA. The body of a loop\conditional statement should be enclosed in braces.
V2508. MISRA. The function with the 'atof/atoi/atoll/atoll' name should not be used.
V2509. MISRA. The function with the 'abort/exit/getenv/system' name should not be used.
V2510. MISRA. The function with the 'qsort/bsearch' name should not be used.
V2511. MISRA. Memory allocation and deallocation functions should not be used.
V2512. MISRA. The macro with the 'setjmp' name and the function with the 'longjmp' name should not be used.
V2513. MISRA. Unbounded functions performing string operations should not be used.
V2514. MISRA. Unions should not be used.
V2515. MISRA. Declaration should contain no more than two levels of pointer nesting.
V2516. MISRA. The 'if' ... 'else if' construct should be terminated with an 'else' statement.
V2517. MISRA. Literal suffixes should not contain lowercase characters.
V2518. MISRA. The 'default' label should be either the first or the last label of a 'switch' statement.
V2519. MISRA. Every 'switch' statement should have a 'default' label, which, in addition to the terminating 'break' statement, should contain either a statement or a comment.
V2520. MISRA. Every switch-clause should be terminated by an unconditional 'break' or 'throw' statement.
V2521. MISRA. Only the first member of enumerator list should be explicitly initialized, unless all members are explicitly initialized.
V2522. MISRA. The 'switch' statement should have 'default' as the last label.
V2523. MISRA. All integer constants of unsigned type should have 'u' or 'U' suffix.
V2524. MISRA. A switch-label should only appear at the top level of the compound statement forming the body of a 'switch' statement.
V2525. MISRA. Every 'switch' statement should contain non-empty switch-clauses.
V2526. MISRA. The functions from time.h/ctime should not be used.
V2527. MISRA. A switch-expression should not have Boolean type. Consider using of 'if-else' construct.
V2528. MISRA. The comma operator should not be used.
V2529. MISRA. Any label should be declared in the same block as 'goto' statement or in any block enclosing it.
V2530. MISRA. Any loop should be terminated with no more than one 'break' or 'goto' statement.
V2531. MISRA. Expression of essential type 'foo' should not be explicitly cast to essential type 'bar'.
V2532. MISRA. String literal should not be assigned to object unless it has type of pointer to const-qualified char.
V2533. MISRA. C-style and functional notation casts should not be performed.
V2534. MISRA. The loop counter should not have floating-point type.
V2535. MISRA. Unreachable code should not be present in the project.
V2536. MISRA. Function should not contain labels not used by any 'goto' statements.
V2537. MISRA. Functions should not have unused parameters.
V2538. MISRA. The value of uninitialized variable should not be used.
V2539. MISRA. Class destructor should not exit with an exception.
V2540. MISRA. Arrays should not be partially initialized.
V2541. MISRA. Function should not be declared implicitly.
V2542. MISRA. Function with a non-void return type should return a value from all exit paths.
V2543. MISRA. Value of the essential character type should be used appropriately in the addition/subtraction operations.
V2544. MISRA. The values used in expressions should have appropriate essential types.
V2545. MISRA. Conversion between pointers of different object types should not be performed.
V2546. MISRA. Expression resulting from the macro expansion should be surrounded by parentheses.
V2547. MISRA. The return value of non-void function should be used.
V2548. MISRA. The address of an object with local scope should not be passed out of its scope.
V2549. MISRA. Pointer to FILE should not be dereferenced.
V2550. MISRA. Floating-point values should not be tested for equality or inequality.
V2551. MISRA. Variable should be declared in a scope that minimizes its visibility.
V2552. MISRA. Expressions with enum underlying type should have values corresponding to the enumerators of the enumeration.
V2553. MISRA. Unary minus operator should not be applied to an expression of the unsigned type.
V2554. MISRA. Expression containing increment (++) or decrement (--) should not have other side effects.
V2555. MISRA. Incorrect shifting expression.
V2556. MISRA. Use of a pointer to FILE when the associated stream has already been closed.
V2557. MISRA. Operand of sizeof() operator should not have other side effects.
V2558. MISRA. A pointer/reference parameter in a function should be declared as pointer/reference to const if the corresponding object was not modified.
V2559. MISRA. Subtraction, >, >=, <, <= should be applied only to pointers that address elements of the same array.
V2560. MISRA. There should be no user-defined variadic functions.
V2561. MISRA. The result of an assignment expression should not be used.
V2562. MISRA. Expressions with pointer type should not be used in the '+', '-', '+=' and '-=' operations.
V2563. MISRA. Array indexing should be the only form of pointer arithmetic and it should be applied only to objects defined as an array type.
V2564. MISRA. There should be no implicit integral-floating conversion.
V2565. MISRA. A function should not call itself either directly or indirectly.
V2566. MISRA. Constant expression evaluation should not result in an unsigned integer wrap-around.
V2567. MISRA. Cast should not remove 'const' / 'volatile' qualification from the type that is pointed to by a pointer or a reference.
V2568. MISRA. Both operands of an operator should be of the same type category.
V2569. MISRA. The 'operator &&', 'operator ||', 'operator ,' and the unary 'operator &' should not be overloaded.
V2570. MISRA. Operands of the logical '&&' or the '||' operators, the '!' operator should have 'bool' type.
V2571. MISRA. Conversions between pointers to objects and integer types should not be performed.
V2572. MISRA. Value of the expression should not be converted to the different essential type or the narrower essential type.
V2573. MISRA. Identifiers that start with '__' or '_[A-Z]' are reserved.
V2574. MISRA. Functions should not be declared at block scope.

Problems related to code analyzer

V001. A code fragment from 'file' cannot be analyzed.
V002. Some diagnostic messages may contain incorrect line number.
V003. Unrecognized error found...
V004. Diagnostics from the 64-bit rule set are not entirely accurate without the appropriate 64-bit compiler. Consider utilizing 64-bit compiler if possible.
V005. Cannot determine active configuration for project. Please check projects and solution configurations.
V006. File cannot be processed. Analysis aborted by timeout.
V007. Deprecated CLR switch was detected. Incorrect diagnostics are possible.
V008. Unable to start the analysis on this file.
V009. To use free version of PVS-Studio, source code files are required to start with a special comment.
V010. Analysis of 'Makefile/Utility' type projects is not supported in this tool. Use direct analyzer integration or compiler monitoring instead.
V011. Presence of #line directives may cause some diagnostic messages to have incorrect file name and line number.
V012. Some warnings could have been disabled.
V051. Some of the references in project are missing or incorrect. The analysis results could be incomplete. Consider making the project fully compilable and building it before analysis.
V052. A critical error had occurred.

How to enter the PVS-Studio License and what's the next move

Windows: C, C++, C#
Linux/macOS: C, C++, C#
Windows/Linux/macOS: C#, Java
Quick start or what's next?

Welcome to the PVS-Studio page, which lists all the ways to activate the license. Most likely, you've just got the license to try out the analyzer. Here you can find out how to use it. The analyzer supports the analysis of such programming languages as C, C++, C# and Java, you can run the analyzer on Windows, Linux and macOS. Due to this, ways to activate the analyzer may differ for various projects. Therefore, please, go to the section that will be right for you and follow the instruction.

Note. All actions are performed after the analyzer installation. You can download it on the page "Download PVS-Studio".

Windows: C, C++, C#

Microsoft Visual Studio

In Visual Studio, go to the menu PVS-Studio > Options > PVS-Studio > Registration to enter the name and the license number:

Compiler Monitoring UI

Go to the menu of the utility Tools > Options > Registration to enter the name and the license number:

Command line analyzer for MSBuild projects

When using the MSBuild projects analyzer, in case if it's not possible to enter the license information via GUI (plugin for Visual Studio or Compiler Monitoring UI), you can use the analyzer itself in a special mode.

The command line might look as follows (in one line):

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe credentials
--username NAME --serialNumber XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

In this case, the analyzer will write the license information in the settings file by default location. If the settings file doesn't exist, it'll be created. By using the flag --settings you can specify the path to the file in the non-standard location.

Linux/macOS: C, C++, C#

After the analyzer installation, you can activate it using the following command:

pvs-studio-analyzer credentials NAME XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

Windows/Linux/macOS: C#, Java

IntelliJ IDEA / Rider

In IDE, go to the menu File > Settings > PVS-Studio > Registration to enter the name and the license number:

Maven Plugin

After the analyzer installation, you can activate it using the following command:

mvn pvsstudio:pvsCredentials "-Dpvsstudio.username=USR" "-Dpvsstudio.serial=KEY"

Gradle Plugin

After the analyzer installation, you can activate it using the following command:

./gradlew pvsCredentials "-Ppvsstudio.username=USR" "-Ppvsstudio.serial=KEY"

Quick start or what's next?

You can read more about running the analyzer on the following pages:

PVS-Studio Trial Mode

After downloading the PVS-Studio distribution and requesting a key to experience the tool, you'll get a fully functioning version, which will be working for one week. In this version, there are absolutely no limits - it is a completely full license. When filling out the form, you can choose which type of license you would like to try: Team License or Enterprise License.

Differences between Enterprise and Team Licenses are given on this page.

If a week wasn't enough for you to get acquainted with the tool, just let us know in your reply - we'll send you another key.

System requirements for PVS-Studio analyzer

Supported programming languages and compilers
Windows
Linux
macOS
Java

PVS-Studio analyzer works under 64-bit systems in Windows, Linux and macOS environments, and can analyze source code intended for 32-bit, 64-bit and embedded ARM platforms.

PVS-Studio requires at least 1 GB of RAM (2 GBs or more is recommended) for each processor core, when running analysis on a multi-core system (the more cores you have, the faster code analysis is).

Supported programming languages and compilers

The list of programming languages and compilers supported by the analyzer is available here.

Windows

Supported versions are Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and Windows Server 2019. PVS-Studio works only under 64-bit versions of Windows.

PVS-Studio requires .NET Framework version 4.7.2 or above (it will be installed during PVS-Studio installation, if it not present).

The PVS-Studio plugin can be integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2012, 2010 development environments. For analysis of C and C++ code for embedded systems, the appropriate compiler toolchain should be present in the system.

Linux

PVS-Studio works under 64-bit Linux distributions with the Linux kernel versions 2.6.x and above. For analysis of C and C++ code for Linux, cross-platform applications and embedded systems, the appropriate compiler toolchains should be installed in the system.

macOS

PVS-Studio works under macOS 10.13.2 High Sierra and above. For analysis of C and C++ code, the appropriate compiler toolchains should be present in the system.

Java

PVS-Studio for Java works under 64-bit Windows, Linux and macOS systems. Minimum required Java version to run the analyzer with is Java 8 (64-bit). A project being analyzed could use any Java version.

PVS-Studio Release History

PVS-Studio 7.11 (December 17, 2020)
PVS-Studio 7.10 (November 5, 2020)
PVS-Studio 7.09 (August 27, 2020)
PVS-Studio 7.08 (June 18, 2020)
PVS-Studio 7.07 (April 16, 2020)
PVS-Studio 7.06 (February 27, 2020)
PVS-Studio 7.05 (December 10, 2019)
PVS-Studio 7.04 (September 4, 2019)
PVS-Studio 7.03 (June 25, 2019)
PVS-Studio 7.02 (April 25, 2019)
PVS-Studio 7.01 (March 13, 2019)
PVS-Studio 7.00 (January 16, 2019)
Release history for old versions

PVS-Studio is an actively developing analyzer. For example, our team is constantly improving its integration with such systems as PlatformIO, Azure DevOps, Travis CI, CircleCI, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, SonarQube, etc. However, the best way to demonstrate the development of analyzer capabilities is to show the graph of the number of diagnostics.

Figure 1. Graph of increasing the number of diagnostics in PVS-Studio

As you can see, we are actively improving the capabilities of the analyzer to detect new error patterns and at the same time are pushing the development of other tools :). More detailed information on innovations in various versions of the analyzer is presented below.

PVS-Studio 7.11 (December 17, 2020)

A change was made to the activation procedure of pvs-studio-analyzer tool for free PVS-Studio version, that requires appending special comments to the header of each analyzed source file. Before first run of the analyzer, a special license key should be entered with the following command: pvs-studio-analyzer credentials PVS-Studio Free FREE-FREE-FREE-FREE.
To increase reliability of mass analyzer message suppression, hash algorithm was modified for messages that are generated on lines of code containing non-latin symbols. For example, when the messages are generated on a line of code with comments. If such messages were already suppressed in suppress files, these messages can reappear in the analyzer's output - they can be re-suppressed after the update.
pvs-studio-analyzer tool now supports IAR Arm compilers.
pvs-studio-analyzer tool can now trace compilers invoked through ld-linux.
V2574. MISRA. Functions shall not be declared at block scope.
V3165. The expression of the 'char' type is passed as an argument of the 'A' type whereas similar overload with the string parameter exists.
V3166. Calling the 'SingleOrDefault' method may lead to 'InvalidOperationException'.
V6100. An object is used as an argument to its own method. Consider checking the first actual argument of the 'Foo' method.
V6101. compareTo()-like methods can return not only the values -1, 0 and 1, but any values.

PVS-Studio 7.10 (November 5, 2020)

PVS-Studio capabilities as a SAST (Static Application Security Testing) solution are increasing as we are launching the effort to support OWASP ASVS and AUTOSAR C++14 Coding Guidelines standards. Mapping tables between existing PVS-Studio rules and those two standards are now available. In future versions, PVS-Studio will increase its coverage for MISRA and AUTOSAR coding standards, as well as implement new rules based on OWASP Top 10 list for the most common and critical vulnerabilities.
PVS-Studio plug-in for JetBrains Rider IDE can now be used for checking Unreal Engine projects (JetBrains Rider for Unreal Engine is currently available in early access)
PVS-Studio SonarQube plug-in now supports classification of analyzer warnings that have a CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) identifier as security defects in the Security Category tab.
PVS-Studio analysis log conversion tools (PlogConverter.exe for Windows and plog-converter for Linux\macOS) now support converting analysis results to SARIF (Static Analysis Results Interchange Format). SARIF is a universal and open format for presenting result output from tools that are dedicated to finding software errors, security and safety flaws and vulnerabilities. This format is supported by a large number of static analyzer tools, and facilitates collaborative use of different code quality assurance tools in common infrastructures.
V830. Decreased performance. Consider replacing the use of 'std::optional::value()' with either the '*' or '->' operator.
V831. Decreased performance. Consider replacing the call to the 'at()' method with the 'operator[]'.
V1064. The left operand of integer division is less than the right one. The result will always be zero.
V1065. Expression can be simplified: check similar operands.
V1066. The 'SysFreeString' function should be called only for objects of the 'BSTR' type.
V1067. Throwing from exception constructor may lead to unexpected behavior.
V3156. The argument of the method is not expected to be null.
V3157. Suspicious division. Absolute value of the left operand is less than the right operand.
V3158. Suspicious division. Absolute values of both operands are equal.
V3159. Modified value of the operand is not used after the increment/decrement operation.
V3160. Argument of incorrect type is passed to the 'Enum.HasFlag' method.
V3161. Comparing value type variables with 'ReferenceEquals' is incorrect because compared values will be boxed.
V3162. Suspicious return of an always empty collection.
V3163. An exception handling block does not contain any code.
V3164. Exception classes should be publicly accessible.
V6093. Automatic unboxing of a variable may cause NullPointerException.
V6094. The expression was implicitly cast from integer type to real type. Consider utilizing an explicit type cast to avoid the loss of a fractional part.
V6095. Thread.sleep() inside synchronized block/method may cause decreased performance.
V6096. An odd precise comparison. Consider using a comparison with defined precision: Math.abs(A - B) < Epsilon or Math.abs(A - B) > Epsilon.
V6097. Lowercase 'L' at the end of a long literal can be mistaken for '1'.
V6098. A method does not override another method from the base class.
V6099. The initial value of the index in the nested loop equals 'i'. Consider using 'i + 1' instead.

PVS-Studio 7.09 (August 27, 2020)

PVS-Studio is included in the Forrester Research report "Now Tech: Static Application Security Testing, Q3 2020" as a SAST specialist. Adopting Static Application Security Testing (SAST) methodology improves application security and helps to reduce the impact of security flaws in application lifecycle. Forrester Research is a leading emerging-technology research firm providing data and analysis that defines the impact of technology change on business. The report is available by purchase or with a subscription with Forrester Research.
Navigation for interprocedural analyzer messages was improved in PVS-Studio C# analyzer, for Visual Studio and Rider PVS-Studio extensions. It is now possible to navigate to potentially dangerous code fragments inside a method when the analyzer produces a warning at this method's invocation.
It is now possible to redefine default severity levels for PVS-Studio C# analyzer rules in rule configuration files (.pvsconfig).
V012. Some warnings could have been disabled. PVS-Studio C++ analyzer's report can now include the exclusion rules that are defined in the rule configuration files (.pvsconfig).
V826. Consider replacing standard container with a different one.
V827. Maximum size of a vector is known at compile time. Consider pre-allocating it by calling reserve(N).
V828. Decreased performance. Moving an object in a return statement prevents copy elision.
V829. Lifetime of the heap-allocated variable is limited to the current function's scope. Consider allocating it on the stack instead.
V1059. Macro name overrides a keyword/reserved name. This may lead to undefined behavior.
V1060. Passing 'BSTR ' to the 'SysAllocString' function may lead to incorrect object creation.
V1061. Extending 'std' or 'posix' namespace may result in undefined behavior.
V1062. Class defines a custom new or delete operator. The opposite operator must also be defined.
V1063. The modulo by 1 operation is meaningless. The result will always be zero.
V3154. The 'a % b' expression always evaluates to 0.
V3155. The expression is incorrect or it can be simplified.
V6082. Unsafe double-checked locking.
V6083. Serialization order of fields should be preserved during deserialization.
V6084. Suspicious return of an always empty collection.
V6085. An abnormality within similar comparisons. It is possible that a typo is present inside the expression.
V6086. Suspicious code formatting. 'else' keyword is probably missing.
V6087. InvalidClassException may occur during deserialization.
V6088. Result of this expression will be implicitly cast to 'Type'. Check if program logic handles it correctly.
V6089. It's possible that the line was commented out improperly, thus altering the program's operation logics.
V6090. Field 'A' is being used before it was initialized.
V6091. Suspicious getter/setter implementation. The 'A' field should probably be returned/assigned instead.
V6092. A resource is returned from try-with-resources statement. It will be closed before the method exits.

PVS-Studio 7.08 (June 18, 2020)

PVS-Studio C# analyzer for .NET Framework and .NET Core projects is now available under Linux and macOS systems.
PVS-Studio C# analyzer can now be used from JetBrains Rider IDE.
It is now very easy to try PVS-Studio analyzer on C and C++ code examples, without downloading and installing the analyzer's distribution, with the help of Compiler Explorer service. Please note - the Compiler Explorer service allows to try the analyzer on a small, isolated code fragment or synthetic example. For a comprehensive evaluation of analyzer's capabilities, please download and install full version of PVS-Studio.
The new file list analysis mode in PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe command line tool under Windows now supports analysis of C, C++ and C# files and can track compile dependencies (source files dependency from header files). This mode can be used to configure merge and pull request analysis with PVS-Studio analyzer.
PVS-Studio C# analyzer's analysis of Unity projects was improved - additional annotations for the most common types from Unity libraries were added.
The 'plog-converter' log conversion utility (Linux, macOS) now supports TeamCity log output format.
Blame Notifier developer automatic notification tool now supports Perforce version control system.
V824. It is recommended to use the 'make_unique/make_shared' function to create smart pointers.
V825. Expression is equivalent to moving one unique pointer to another. Consider using 'std::move' instead.
V1056. The predefined identifier '__func__' always contains the string 'operator()' inside function body of the overloaded 'operator()'.
V1057. Pseudo random sequence is the same at every program run. Consider assigning the seed to a value not known at compile-time.
V1058. Nonsensical comparison of two different functions' addresses.
V6078. Potential Java SE API compatibility issue.
V6079. Value of variable is checked after use. Potential logical error is present. Check lines: N1, N2.
V6080. Consider checking for misprints. It's possible that an assigned variable should be checked in the next condition.
V6081. Annotation that does not have 'RUNTIME' retention policy will not be accessible through Reflection API.

PVS-Studio 7.07 (April 16, 2020)

PVS-Studio C++ analyzer can now parse concepts. Concepts are an extension of C++ templates, which were introduced in C++20 language standard. The V003 analyzer error, that was caused by using concepts in analyzed code, was fixed.
PVS-Studio SonarQube plug-in now supports macOS.
XML log conversion tool (PlogConverter) now supports output format for TeamCity continuous integration server.
It is now possible to include and exclude specific projects from analysis in command line analyzer for Visual Studio \ MSBuild projects (PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe) through --selectProjects / --excludeProjects flags.
Occasional hanging of PVS-Studio Visual Studio plug-in while opening solutions, caused by double initialization, was fixed.
V1053. Calling the 'foo' virtual function in the constructor/destructor may lead to unexpected result at runtime.
V1054. Object slicing. Derived class object was copied to the base class object.
V1055. The 'sizeof' expression returns the size of the container type, not the number of elements. Consider using the 'size()' function.
V2573. MISRA. Identifiers that start with '__' or '_[A-Z]' are reserved.

PVS-Studio 7.06 (February 27, 2020)

PVS-Studio can now be used with PlatformIO cross-platform IDE for embedded development. Additional details on configuring PVS-Studio in PlatformIO are available here.
Memory allocation was optimized for PVS-Studio C# analyzer. This can speed-up the analysis of large-scale projects.
New command line arguments were added to PVS-Studio C# analyzer: --excludeDefines / --appendDefines. These arguments can be used to undefine / define preprocessor symbols, which will be used during the analysis.
PVS-Studio C# analyzer can now correctly understand Unity-specific null-checks of variables, when such variables are implicitly cast to bool type.
V823. Decreased performance. Object may be created in-place in a container. Consider replacing methods: 'insert' -> 'emplace', 'push_*' -> 'emplace_*'.
V1050. The uninitialized class member is used when initializing the base class.
V1051. Consider checking for misprints. It's possible that an assigned variable should be checked in the next condition.
V1052. Declaring virtual methods in a class marked as 'final' is pointless.
V2562. MISRA. Expressions with pointer type should not be used in the '+', '-', '+=' and '-=' operations.
V2563. MISRA. Array indexing should be the only form of pointer arithmetic and it should be applied only to objects defined as an array type.
V2564. MISRA. There should be no implicit integral-floating conversion.
V2565. MISRA. A function should not call itself either directly or indirectly.
V2566. MISRA. Constant expression evaluation should not result in an unsigned integer wrap-around.
V2567. MISRA. Cast should not remove 'const' / 'volatile' qualification from the type that is pointed to by a pointer or a reference.
V2568. MISRA. Both operands of an operator should be of the same type category.
V2569. MISRA. The 'operator &&', 'operator ||', 'operator ,' and the unary 'operator &' should not be overloaded.
V2570. MISRA. Operands of the logical '&&' or the '||' operators, the '!' operator should have 'bool' type.
V2571. MISRA. Conversions between pointers to objects and integer types should not be performed.
V2572. MISRA. Value of the expression should not be converted to the different essential type or the narrower essential type.
V3150. Loop break conditions do not depend on the number of iterations.
V3151. Potential division by zero. Variable was used as a divisor before it was compared to zero. Check lines: N1, N2.
V3152. Potential division by zero. Variable was compared to zero before it was used as a divisor. Check lines: N1, N2.
V3153. Dereferencing the result of null-conditional access operator can lead to NullReferenceException. Consider removing parentheses around null-conditional access expression.
V6077. Label is present inside a switch(). It is possible that these are misprints and 'default:' operator should be used instead.

PVS-Studio 7.05 (December 10, 2019)

Blame Notifier tool, which provides notification of developers about analyzer results, is now available on all of the platforms supported by the analyzer (Windows, Linux, macOS). Blame Notifier uses information from version control system (SVN, Git, Mercurial) to identify a person responsible for writing the code that triggered an analyzer message.
PVS-Studio can now be installed from Chocolatey package manager.
Analysis of .NET Core 3 and 3.1 projects is now supported in C# analyzer.
It is now possible, in Windows version of the analyzer, to specify the directories excluded from the analysis under specific Visual Studio projects and solutions inside .pvsconfig files.
Memory footprint of PVS-Studio C# analyzer was optimized when it is used to analyze large-scale projects.
V822. Decreased performance. A new object is created, while a reference to an object is expected.
V1044. Loop break conditions do not depend on the number of iterations.
V1045. The DllMain function throws an exception. Consider wrapping the throw operator in a try..catch block.
V1046. Unsafe usage of the 'bool' and integer types together in the operation '&='.
V1047. Lifetime of the lambda is greater than lifetime of the local variable captured by reference.
V1048. Variable 'foo' was assigned the same value.
V1049. The 'foo' include guard is already defined in the 'bar1.h' header. The 'bar2.h' header will be excluded from compilation.
V2558. MISRA. A pointer/reference parameter in a function should be declared as pointer/reference to const if the corresponding object was not modified.
V2559. MISRA. Subtraction, >, >=, <, <= should be applied only to pointers that address elements of the same array.
V2560. MISRA. There should be no user-defined variadic functions.
V2561. MISRA. The result of an assignment expression should not be used.
V3146. Possible null dereference. A method can return default null value.
V3147. Non-atomic modification of volatile variable.
V3148. Casting potential 'null' value to a value type can lead to NullReferenceException.
V3149. Dereferencing the result of 'as' operator can lead to NullReferenceException.
V6072. Two similar code fragments were found. Perhaps, this is a typo and 'X' variable should be used instead of 'Y'.
V6073. It is not recommended to return null or throw exceptions from 'toString' / 'clone' methods.
V6074. Non-atomic modification of volatile variable.
V6075. The signature of method 'X' does not conform to serialization requirements.
V6076. Recurrent serialization will use cached object state from first serialization.

PVS-Studio 7.04 (September 4, 2019)

PVS-Studio plug-in for IntelliJ IDEA now supports IDEA version 192.
PVS-Studio plug-ins for Visual Studio can now automatically load analysis report when analyzing Unreal Engine projects.
PVS-Studio C# analyzer can now analyze projects for .NET Core 3 Preview.
PVS-Studio C# analyzer now supports getting return values from async methods and get\set property accessors.
Compiler monitoring tool under Windows now supports tracing only the child processes from a specified parent process.
Added a new mode to ignore ccache for compiler monitoring under for Linux.
PVS-Studio plug-in for displaying analysis results in Jenkins can now be used under Linux and macOS hosts (previously it was available only under Windows).
PVS-Studio plug-in for SonarQube now supports SonarQube 7.9 LTS.
V1040. Possible typo in the spelling of a pre-defined macro name.
V1041. Class member is initialized with dangling reference.
V1042. This file is marked with copyleft license, which requires you to open the derived source code.
V1043. A global object variable is declared in the header. Multiple copies of it will be created in all translation units that include this header file.
V2551. MISRA. Variable should be declared in a scope that minimizes its visibility.
V2552. MISRA. Expressions with enum underlying type should have values corresponding to the enumerators of the enumeration.
V2553. MISRA. Unary minus operator should not be applied to an expression of the unsigned type.
V2554. MISRA. Expression containing increment (++) or decrement (--) should not have other side effects.
V2555. MISRA. Incorrect shifting expression.
V2556. MISRA. Use of a pointer to FILE when the associated stream has already been closed.
V2557. MISRA. Operand of sizeof() operator should not have other side effects.
V3140. Property accessors use different backing fields.
V3141. Expression under 'throw' is a potential null, which can lead to NullReferenceException.
V3142. Unreachable code detected. It is possible that an error is present.
V3143. The 'value' parameter is rewritten inside a property setter, and is not used after that.
V3144. This file is marked with copyleft license, which requires you to open the derived source code.
V3145. Unsafe dereference of a WeakReference target. The object could have been garbage collected before the 'Target' property was accessed.
V6068. Suspicious use of BigDecimal class.
V6069. Unsigned right shift assignment of negative 'byte' / 'short' value.
V6070. Unsafe synchronization on an object.
V6071. This file is marked with copyleft license, which requires you to open the derived source code.

PVS-Studio 7.03 (June 25, 2019)

PVS-Studio analyzer documentation now contains a section describing the use of analyzer inside containers under Docker.
Support for analyzing QNX Momentics projects, QCC compiler.
V1038. It's odd that a char or string literal is added to a pointer.
V1039. Character escape is used in multicharacter literal. This causes implementation-defined behavior.
V2543. MISRA. Value of the essential character type should be used appropriately in the addition/subtraction operations.
V2544. MISRA. Values of the essential appropriate types should be used at expressions.
V2545. MISRA. Conversion between pointers of different object types should not be performed.
V2546. MISRA. Expression resulting from the macro expansion should be surrounded by parentheses.
V2547. MISRA. The return value of non-void function should be used.
V2548. MISRA. The address of an object with local scope should not be passed out of its scope.
V2549. MISRA. Pointer to FILE should not be dereferenced.
V2550. MISRA. Floating-point values should not be tested for equality or inequality.
V3138. String literal contains potential interpolated expression.
V3139. Two or more case-branches perform the same actions.
V6067. Two or more case-branches perform the same actions.

PVS-Studio 7.02 (April 25, 2019)

PVS-Studio now supports Visual Studio 2019. Visual C++,.NET Framework and .NET Core projects from Visual Studio 2019 can be analyzed from IDE itself, or from command line through PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe tool.
PVS-Studio C# analyzer now supports new syntax from C# 8.0.
PVS-Studio C# now can detect potential null dereferences (V3080 rule) inside methods when potential null value is passed to a method as an argument.
Plug-in for PVS-Studio Java analyzer is now available in the official JetBrains plug-in repository. You can now also install integration with IDEA through our Windows Installer.
PVS-Studio plug-ins for IDEA, Maven and Gradle now provide mass suppression of analyzer messages, which can be used to hide analyzer warnings on a legacy code during analyzer integration into development process.
Compiler Monitoring for Windows now can correctly work when monitoring a build under Keil uVision in case a Windows user name contains non-Latin characters.
V1037. Two or more case-branches perform the same actions.
V2530. MISRA. The loop should be terminated with no more than one 'break' or 'goto' statement.
V2531. MISRA. Expression of the essential 'foo' type should not be cast to the essential 'bar' type.
V2532. MISRA. String literal should not be assigned to object unless it has type of pointer to const-qualified char.
V2533. MISRA. C-style and functional notation casts should not be performed.
V2534. MISRA. The loop counter should not have floating-point type.
V2535. MISRA. Unreachable code should not be present in the project.
V2536. MISRA. Function should not contain labels not used by any 'goto' statements.
V2537. MISRA. Functions should not have unused parameters.
V2538. MISRA. The value of uninitialized variable should not be used.
V2539. MISRA. Class destructor should not exit with an exception.
V2540. MISRA. Arrays should not be partially initialized.
V2541. MISRA. Function should not be declared implicitly.
V2542. MISRA. Function with a non-void return type should return a value from all exit paths.

PVS-Studio 7.01 (March 13, 2019)

The limit that existed in the trial version of the analyzer for Visual Studio plug-in, restricting a number of analyzer's messages that can be viewed in the source code, is no more! Now, PVS-Studio for Windows uses the same trial mode as PVS-Studio on other platforms - you can get a fully functional trial license by filling out a form on the analyzer's download page.
PVS-Studio C# rule V3080 (null dereference) is now able to detect potential dereferences when a reference can receive null in one of the execution branches. Inter-procedural analysis was improved.
PVS-Studio Visual Studio plug-in can now perform automatic checkouts on suppress files that are stored in TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control). This mode can be enabled on 'Options... > Specific Analyzer Settings' page.
V1036. Potentially unsafe double-checked locking.
V2529. MISRA. Any label should be declared in the same block as 'goto' statement or in any block enclosing it.

PVS-Studio 7.00 (January 16, 2019)

PVS-Studio 7.00 now provides static analyzer for Java. You can read about all new features of PVS-Studio 7.00 in our blog.
PVS-Studio plug-in for SonarQube is updated to support latest SonarQube version 7.4. The minimal SonarQube version supported by PVS-Studio plug-in is now raised to LTS SonarQube version 6.7.
V2526. MISRA. The function with the 'clock/time/difftime/ctime/ asctime/gmtime/localtime/mktime' name should not be used.
V2527. MISRA. A switch-expression should not have Boolean type. Consider using of 'if-else' construct.
V2528. MISRA. The comma operator should not be used.
V6001. There are identical sub-expressions to the left and to the right of the 'foo' operator.
V6002. The switch statement does not cover all values of the enum.
V6003. The use of 'if (A) {...} else if (A) {...}' pattern was detected. There is a probability of logical error presence.
V6004. The 'then' statement is equivalent to the 'else' statement.
V6005. The 'x' variable is assigned to itself.
V6006. The object was created but it is not being used. The 'throw' keyword could be missing.
V6007. Expression is always true/false.
V6008. Potential null dereference.
V6009. Function receives an odd argument.
V6010. The return value of function 'Foo' is required to be utilized.
V6011. The expression contains a suspicious mix of integer and real types
V6012. The '?:' operator, regardless of its conditional expression, always returns one and the same value.
V6013. Comparison of arrays, strings, collections by reference. Possibly an equality comparison was intended.
V6014. It's odd that this method always returns one and the same value of NN.
V6015. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '!='/'-='/'+=' should be used here.
V6016. Suspicious access to element by a constant index inside a loop.
V6017. The 'X' counter is not used inside a nested loop. Consider inspecting usage of 'Y' counter.
V6018. Constant expression in switch statement.
V6019. Unreachable code detected. It is possible that an error is present.
V6020. Division or mod division by zero.
V6021. The value is assigned to the 'x' variable but is not used.
V6022. Parameter is not used inside method's body.
V6023. Parameter 'A' is always rewritten in method body before being used.
V6024. The 'continue' operator will terminate 'do { ... } while (false)' loop because the condition is always false.
V6025. Possibly index is out of bound.
V6026. This value is already assigned to the 'b' variable.
V6027. Variables are initialized through the call to the same function. It's probably an error or un-optimized code.
V6028. Identical expressions to the left and to the right of compound assignment.
V6029. Possible incorrect order of arguments passed to method.
V6030. The function located to the right of the '|' and '&' operators will be called regardless of the value of the left operand. Consider using '||' and '&&' instead.
V6031. The variable 'X' is being used for this loop and for the outer loop.
V6032. It is odd that the body of 'Foo_1' function is fully equivalent to the body of 'Foo_2' function.
V6033. An item with the same key has already been added.
V6034. Shift by N bits is inconsistent with the size of type.
V6035. Double negation is present in the expression: !!x.
V6036. The value from the uninitialized optional is used.
V6037. An unconditional 'break/continue/return/goto' within a loop.
V6038. Comparison with 'double.NaN' is meaningless. Use 'double.isNaN()' method instead.
V6039. There are two 'if' statements with identical conditional expressions. The first 'if' statement contains method return. This means that the second 'if' statement is senseless.
V6040. The code's operational logic does not correspond with its formatting.
V6041. Suspicious assignment inside the conditional expression of 'if/while/do...while' statement.
V6042. The expression is checked for compatibility with type 'A', but is cast to type 'B'.
V6043. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. Initial and final values of the iterator are the same.
V6044. Postfix increment/decrement is senseless because this variable is overwritten.
V6045. Suspicious subexpression in a sequence of similar comparisons.
V6046. Incorrect format. Consider checking the N format items of the 'Foo' function.
V6047. It is possible that this 'else' branch must apply to the previous 'if' statement.
V6048. This expression can be simplified. One of the operands in the operation equals NN. Probably it is a mistake.
V6049. Classes that define 'equals' method must also define 'hashCode' method.
V6050. Class initialization cycle is present.
V6051. Use of jump statements in 'finally' block can lead to the loss of unhandled exceptions.
V6052. Calling an overridden method in parent-class constructor may lead to use of uninitialized data.
V6053. Collection is modified while iteration is in progress. ConcurrentModificationException may occur.
V6054. Classes should not be compared by their name.
V6055. Expression inside assert statement can change object's state.
V6056. Implementation of 'compareTo' overloads the method from a base class. Possibly, an override was intended.
V6057. Consider inspecting this expression. The expression is excessive or contains a misprint.
V6058. The 'X' function receives objects of incompatible types.
V6059. Odd use of special character in regular expression. Possibly, it was intended to be escaped.
V6060. The reference was used before it was verified against null.
V6061. The used constant value is represented by an octal form.
V6062. Possible infinite recursion.
V6063. Odd semicolon ';' after 'if/foreach' operator.
V6064. Suspicious invocation of Thread.run().
V6065. A non-serializable class should not be serialized.
V6066. Passing objects of incompatible types to the method of collection.

Release history for old versions

Please read release history for old versions here.

Old PVS-Studio Release History (before 7.00)

PVS-Studio 6.27 (December 3, 2018)
PVS-Studio 6.26 (October 18, 2018)
PVS-Studio 6.25 (August 20, 2018)
PVS-Studio 6.24 (June 14, 2018)
PVS-Studio 6.23 (March 28, 2018)
PVS-Studio 6.22 (February 28, 2018)
PVS-Studio 6.21 (January 15, 2018)
PVS-Studio 6.20 (December 1, 2017)
PVS-Studio 6.19 (November 14, 2017)
PVS-Studio 6.18 (September 26, 2017)
PVS-Studio 6.17 (August 30, 2017)
PVS-Studio 6.16 (June 28, 2017)
PVS-Studio 6.15 (April 27, 2017)
PVS-Studio 6.14 (March 17, 2017)
PVS-Studio 6.13 (January 27, 2017)
PVS-Studio 6.12 (December 22, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.11 (November 29, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.10 (October 25, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.09 (October 6, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.08 (August 22, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.07 (August 8, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.06 (July 7, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.05 (June 9, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.04 (May 16, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.03 (April 5, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.02 (March 9, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.01 (February 3, 2016)
PVS-Studio 6.00 (December 22, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.31 (November 3, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.30 (October 29, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.29 (September 22, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.28 (August 10, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.27 (July 28, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.26 (June 30, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.25 (May 12, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.24 (April 10, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.23 (March 17, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.22 (February 17, 2015)
PVS-Studio 5.21 (December 11, 2014)
PVS-Studio 5.20 (November 12, 2014)
PVS-Studio 5.19 (September 18, 2014)
PVS-Studio 5.18 (July 30, 2014)
PVS-Studio 5.17 (May 20, 2014)
PVS-Studio 5.16 (April 29, 2014)
PVS-Studio 5.15 (April 14, 2014)
PVS-Studio 5.14 (March 12, 2014)
PVS-Studio 5.13 (February 5, 2014)
PVS-Studio 5.12 (December 23, 2013)
PVS-Studio 5.11 (November 6, 2013)
PVS-Studio 5.10 (October 7, 2013)
PVS-Studio 5.06 (August 13, 2013)
PVS-Studio 5.05 (May 28, 2013)
PVS-Studio 5.04 (May 14, 2013)
PVS-Studio 5.03 (April 16, 2013)
PVS-Studio 5.02 (March 6, 2013)
PVS-Studio 5.01 (February 13, 2013)
PVS-Studio 5.00 (January 31, 2013)
PVS-Studio 4.77 (December 11, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.76 (November 23, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.75 (November 12, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.74 (October 16, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.73 (September 17, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.72 (August 30, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.71 (July 20, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.70 (July 3, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.62 (May 30, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.61 (May 22, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.60 (April 18, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.56 (March 14, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.55 (February 28, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.54 (February 1, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.53 (January 19, 2012)
PVS-Studio 4.52 (December 28, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.51 (December 22, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.50 (December 15, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.39 (November 25, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.38 (October 12, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.37 (September 20, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.36 (August 31, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.35 (August 12, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.34 (July 29, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.33 (July 21, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.32 (July 15, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.31 (July 6, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.30 (June 23, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.21 (May 20, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.20 (April 29, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.17 (April 15, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.16 (April 1, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.15 (March 17, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.14 (March 2, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.13 (February 11, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.12 (February 7, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.11 (January 28, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.10 (January 17, 2011)
PVS-Studio 4.00 (December 24, 2010)
PVS-Studio 4.00 BETA (November 24, 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.64 (27 September 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.63 (10 September 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.62 (16 August 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.61 (22 July 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.60 (10 June 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.53 (7 May 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.52 (27 April 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.51 (16 April 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.50 (26 March 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.44 (21 January 2010)
PVS-Studio 3.43 (28 December 2009)
PVS-Studio 3.42 (9 December 2009)
PVS-Studio 3.41 (30 November 2009)
PVS-Studio 3.40 (23 November 2009)
PVS-Studio 3.30 (25 September 2009)
PVS-Studio 3.20 (7 September 2009)
PVS-Studio 3.10 (10 August 2009)
PVS-Studio 3.00 (27 July 2009)
VivaMP 1.10 (20 April 2009)
VivaMP 1.00 (10 March 2009)
VivaMP 1.00 beta (27 November 2008)
Viva64 2.30 (20 April 2009)
Viva64 2.22 (10 Mach 2009)
Viva64 2.21 (27 November 2008)
Viva64 2.20 (15 October 2008)
Viva64 2.10 (05 September 2008)
Viva64 2.0 (09 July 2008)
Viva64 1.80 (03 February 2008)
Viva64 1.70 (20 December 2007)
Viva64 1.60 (28 August 2007)
Viva64 1.50 (15 May 2007)
Viva64 1.40 (1 May 2007)
Viva64 1.30 (17 March 2007)
Viva64 1.20 (26 January 2007)
Viva64 1.10 (16 January 2007)
Viva64 1.00 (31 December 2006)

Please read actual release history here.

PVS-Studio 6.27 (December 3, 2018)

Analyzer log conversion tools (plog converter) source code is now available at our GitHub portal: https://github.com/viva64
PVS-Studio now supports MISRA C and MISRA C++ software development guidelines. The number of supported MISRA rules will gradually increase in the future analyzer releases.
V2501. MISRA. Octal constants should not be used.
V2502. MISRA. The 'goto' statement should not be used.
V2503. MISRA. Implicitly specified enumeration constants should be unique – consider specifying non-unique constants explicitly.
V2504. MISRA. Size of an array is not specified.
V2505. MISRA. The 'goto' statement shouldn't jump to a label declared earlier.
V2506. MISRA. A function should have a single point of exit at the end.
V2507. MISRA. The body of a loop\conditional statement should be enclosed in braces.
V2508. MISRA. The function with the 'atof/atoi/atoll/atoll' name should not be used.
V2509. MISRA. The function with the 'abort/exit/getenv/system' name should not be used.
V2510. MISRA. The function with the 'qsort/bsearch' name should not be used.
V2511. MISRA. Memory allocation and deallocation functions should not be used.
V2512. MISRA. The macro with the 'setjmp' name and the function with the 'longjmp' name should not be used.
V2513. MISRA. Unbounded functions performing string operations should not be used.
V2514. MISRA. Unions should not be used.
V2515. MISRA. Declaration should contain no more than two levels of pointer nesting.
V2516. MISRA. The 'if' ... 'else if' construct shall be terminated with an 'else' statement.
V2517. MISRA. Literal suffixes should not contain lowercase characters.
V2518. MISRA. The 'default' label should be either the first or the last label of a 'switch' statement.
V2519. MISRA. The 'default' label is missing in 'switch' statement.
V2520. MISRA. Every switch-clause should be terminated by an unconditional 'break' or 'throw' statement.
V2521. MISRA. Only the first member of enumerator list should be explicitly initialized, unless all members are explicitly initialized.
V2522. MISRA. The 'switch' statement should have 'default' as the last label.
V2523. MISRA. All integer constants of unsigned type should have 'u' or 'U' suffix.
V2524. MISRA. A switch-label should only appear at the top level of the compound statement forming the body of a 'switch' statement.
V2525. MISRA. Every 'switch' statement should contain non-empty switch-clauses.

PVS-Studio 6.26 (October 18, 2018)

Support for analyzing projects for GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain, Arm Embedded GCC compiler was added.
It is now possible to use pvsconfig files with CLMonitor/Standalone under Windows.
Letter case is now preserved for analyzed source files in the analyzer's log when analyzing Visual C++ projects (cl.exe, Visual Studio/MSBuild vcxproj projects).
New incremental analysis mode was added to pvs-studio-analyzer/Cmake module. PVS-Studio CMake module can now be used for Visual C++ (cl.exe) projects under Windows.
Incremental analysis support was implemented for .NET Core/.NET Standard Visual Studio projects.
Now it is possible to analyze projects of WAF build automation tool.
V1021. The variable is assigned the same value on several loop iterations.
V1022. An exception was thrown by pointer. Consider throwing it by value instead.
V1023. A pointer without owner is added to the container by the 'emplace_back' method. A memory leak will occur in case of an exception.
V1024. The stream is checked for EOF before reading from it, but is not checked after reading. Potential use of invalid data.
V1025. Rather than creating 'std::unique_lock' to lock on the mutex, a new variable with default value is created.
V1026. The variable is incremented in the loop. Undefined behavior will occur in case of signed integer overflow.
V1027. Pointer to an object of the class is cast to unrelated class.
V1028. Possible overflow. Consider casting operands, not the result.
V1029. Numeric Truncation Error. Return value of function is written to N-bit variable.
V1030. The variable is used after it was moved.
V1031. Function is not declared. The passing of data to or from this function may be affected.
V1032. Pointer is cast to a more strictly aligned pointer type.
V1033. Variable is declared as auto in C. Its default type is int.
V1034. Do not use real-type variables as loop counters.
V1035. Only values that are returned from fgetpos() can be used as arguments to fsetpos().
V2014. Don't use terminating functions in library code.

PVS-Studio 6.25 (August 20, 2018)

A common suppress file for all projects can now be added to a Visual Studio solution.
Roslyn and MSBuild libraries used for analyzing Visual Studio projects were updated to support latest C++/C# project types and C# language features.
Support for multi-target C# projects was improved.
PVS-Studio CMake module now supports generator expressions and can track implicit dependencies of analyzed files.
Our website now provides information on using PVS-Studio as a part of security development lifecycle (SDL), as a SAST (Static Application Security Testing) tool. This page contains mappings of analyzer diagnostics rules to the CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) format and SEI CERT secure coding standard, and the status of our ongoing effort to support MISRA standards.

PVS-Studio 6.24 (June 14, 2018)

Support for Texas Instruments Code Composer Studio, ARM compiler was added under Windows\Linux.
Compiler monitoring under Windows now supports saving monitoring data to a dump file and starting the analysis from this dump file. This allows to re-run the analysis without the necessity to re-build the analyzed project each time.
A new mode for checking individual files was added to the command line analyzer for Visual Studio projects under Windows.
V1013. Suspicious subexpression in a sequence of similar comparisons.
V1014. Structures with members of real type are compared byte-wise.
V1015. Suspicious simultaneous use of bitwise and logical operators.
V1016. The value is out of range of enum values. This causes unspecified or undefined behavior.
V1017. Variable of the 'string_view' type references a temporary object which will be removed after evaluation of an expression.
V1018. Usage of a suspicious mutex wrapper. It is probably unused, uninitialized, or already locked.
V1019. Compound assignment expression is used inside condition.
V1020. Function exited without performing epilogue actions. It is possible that there is an error.

PVS-Studio 6.23 (March 28, 2018)

PVS-Studio is now available on macOS! Now you can analyze C and C++ source code with PVS-Studio not only under Windows/Linux, but also under macOS. The analyzer is available as a pkg installer, tgz archive and through Homebrew package manager. The documentation on using PVS-Studio under macOS is available here.
V011. Presence of #line directives may cause some diagnostic messages to have incorrect file name and line number.
V1011. Function execution could be deferred. Consider specifying execution policy explicitly.
V1012. The expression is always false. Overflow check is incorrect.

PVS-Studio 6.22 (February 28, 2018)

Analyzing projects for Keil MDK ARM Compiler 5 and ARM Compiler 6 is now supported.
Analyzing projects for IAR C/C++ Compiler for ARM is now supported.
V1008. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. No more than one iteration of the loop will be performed.
V1009. Check the array initialization. Only the first element is initialized explicitly.
V1010. Unchecked tainted data is used in expression.

PVS-Studio 6.21 (January 15, 2018)

Support for CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) was added to C/C++/C# analyzers.
HTML log with source code navigation can now be saved from Visual Studio plug-ins and the Standalone tool.
WDK (Windows Driver Kit) projects for Visual Studio 2017 are now supported.
PVS-Studio plug-in for SonarQube was updated for the latest LTS version 6.7.
V1007. The value from the uninitialized optional is used. Probably it is a mistake.

PVS-Studio 6.20 (December 1, 2017)

You can save analysis results as HTML with full source code navigation.
You can make the analysis less "noisy" by disabling generation of Low Certainty (Level 3) messages. Just set the NoNoise option.

PVS-Studio 6.19 (November 14, 2017)

It is now possible to suppress messages from XML log file (.plog) with Windows command line analyzer.
The performance and stability of message suppression and incremental analysis were improved in Visual Studio plug-ins for very large (thousands of projects) solutions.
V1004. The pointer was used unsafely after it was verified against nullptr.
V1005. The resource was acquired using 'X' function but was released using incompatible 'Y' function.
V1006. Several shared_ptr objects are initialized by the same pointer. A double memory deallocation will occur.

PVS-Studio 6.18 (September 26, 2017)

Linux version now has a default location for a license file.
Linux version now provides a new way to enter credentials.
Linux version now can generate an HTML analysis report.
The support of ASP.Net Core projects analysis is added in Windows version.
Scaling of UI elements on different DPIs was improved in Windows version
Performance of PVS-Studio output window in Windows version was improved when working with large analyzer reports, sorting the reports by columns, working with a large number of simultaneously selected messages.
"Send to External Tool" feature was removed from Visual Studio extension.
Trial mode extension dialogs were substantially redesigned in Visual Studio extension.
V1002. A class, containing pointers, constructor and destructor, is copied by the automatically generated operator= or copy constructor.
V1003. The macro is a dangerous, or the expression is suspicious.

PVS-Studio 6.17 (August 30, 2017)

15.3 Update supported for Visual Studio 2017.
Analyzer report can now be saved from Visual Studio plugin and Standalone in txt\csv\html formats without the need to invoke PlogConverter manually.
The license and setting files are now saved in UTF-8 encoding.
A list of recently opened logs is added to the menu of Visual Studio plugins.
Incremental analysis in PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe - the "AppendScan" option was added. Details can be found in the description of PVS-Studio_Cmd utility here.
A new plugin to display the analysis results in the Jenkins continuous integration system (on Windows)
A new version of plugin for SonarQube quality control platform for Linux.
Support for unparsed output from C++ analyzer was added to PlogConverter tool.
V821. The variable can be constructed in a lower level scope.
V1001. The variable is assigned but is not used until the end of the function.
V3135. The initial value of the index in the nested loop equals 'i'. Consider using 'i + 1' instead.
V3136. Constant expression in switch statement.
V3137. The variable is assigned but is not used until the end of the function.

PVS-Studio 6.16 (June 28, 2017)

Clang-based toolsets support for Visual Studio 2015/2017.
Solution directory can now be used as Source Tree Root in Visual Studio.
V788. Review captured variable in lambda expression.
V789. Iterators for the container, used in the range-based for loop, become invalid upon a function call.
V790. It is odd that the assignment operator takes an object by a non-constant reference and returns this object.
V791. The initial value of the index in the nested loop equals 'i'. Consider using 'i + 1' instead.
V792. The function located to the right of the '|' and '&' operators will be called regardless of the value of the left operand. Consider using '||' and '&&' instead.
V793. It is odd that the result of the statement is a part of the condition. Perhaps, this statement should have been compared with something else.
V794. The copy operator should be protected from the case of this == &src.
V795. Note that the size of the 'time_t' type is not 64 bits. After the year 2038, the program will work incorrectly.
V796. A 'break' statement is probably missing in a 'switch' statement.
V797. The function is used as if it returned a bool type. The return value of the function should probably be compared with std::string::npos.
V798. The size of the dynamic array can be less than the number of elements in the initializer.
V799. The variable is not used after memory has been allocated for it. Consider checking the use of this variable.
V818. It is more efficient to use an initialization list rather than an assignment operator.
V819. Decreased performance. Memory is allocated and released multiple times inside the loop body.
V820. The variable is not used after copying. Copying can be replaced with move/swap for optimization.

PVS-Studio 6.15 (April 27, 2017)

Visual Studio 2017 support improved.
Fixed issue related to specific .pch files.
V782. It is pointless to compute the distance between the elements of different arrays.
V783. Dereferencing of invalid iterator 'X' might take place.
V784. The size of the bit mask is less than the size of the first operand. This will cause the loss of the higher bits.
V785. Constant expression in switch statement.
V786. Assigning the value C to the X variable looks suspicious. The value range of the variable: [A, B].
V787. A wrong variable is probably used as an index in the for statement.

PVS-Studio 6.14 (March 17, 2017)

Visual Studio 2017 support added.
Support of Roslyn 2.0 / C# 7.0 in C# PVS-Studio Analyzer.
Line highlighting added when viewing the analyzer messages in Visual Studio plugins and Standalone version.
The issue of checking C++ projects fixed. It could appear during the start of the analysis on the system without an installed Visual Studio 2015 /MSBuild 14.
V780. The object of non-passive (non-PDS) type cannot be used with the function.
V781. The value of the variable is checked after it was used. Perhaps there is a mistake in program logic. Check lines: N1, N2.
V3131. The expression is checked for compatibility with type 'A' but is cast to type 'B'.
V3132. A terminal null is present inside a string. '\0xNN' character sequence was encountered. Probably meant: '\xNN'.
V3133. Postfix increment/decrement is meaningless because this variable is overwritten.
V3134. Shift by N bits is greater than the size of type.

PVS-Studio 6.13 (January 27, 2017)

Incremental analysis mode is added to the cmd version of the analyzer (PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe). More details can be found in the documentation.
V779. Unreachable code detected. It is possible that an error is present.
V3128. The field (property) is used before it is initialized in constructor.
V3129. The value of the captured variable will be overwritten on the next iteration of the loop in each instance of anonymous function that captures it.
V3130. Priority of the '&&' operator is higher than that of the '||' operator. Possible missing parentheses.

PVS-Studio 6.12 (December 22, 2016)

V773. The function was exited without releasing the pointer. A memory leak is possible.
V774. The pointer was used after the memory was released.
V775. It is odd that the BSTR data type is compared using a relational operator.
V776. Potentially infinite loop. The variable in the loop exit condition does not change its value between iterations.
V777. Dangerous widening type conversion from an array of derived-class objects to a base-class pointer.
V778. Two similar code fragments were found. Perhaps, this is a typo and 'X' variable should be used instead of 'Y'.
V3123. Perhaps the '??' operator works differently from what was expected. Its priority is lower than that of other operators in its left part.
V3124. Appending an element and checking for key uniqueness is performed on two different variables.
V3125. The object was used after it was verified against null. Check lines: N1, N2.
V3126. Type implementing IEquatable<T> interface does not override 'GetHashCode' method.

PVS-Studio 6.11 (November 29, 2016)

V771. The '?:' operator uses constants from different enums.
V772. Calling the 'delete' operator for a void pointer will cause undefined behavior.
V817. It is more efficient to search for 'X' character rather than a string.
V3119. Calling a virtual (overridden) event may lead to unpredictable behavior. Consider implementing event accessors explicitly or use 'sealed' keyword.
V3120. Potentially infinite loop. The variable in the loop exit condition does not change its value between iterations.
V3121. An enumeration was declared with 'Flags' attribute, but no initializers were set to override default values.
V3122. Uppercase (lowercase) string is compared with a different lowercase (uppercase) string.
Support for analyzing Visual C++ projects (.vcxproj) with Intel C++ toolsets was implemented in Visual Studio plug-in.

PVS-Studio 6.10 (October 25, 2016)

We are releasing PVS-Studio for Linux! Now it is possible to check C and C+ source code with PVS-Studio not only under Windows, but under Linux as well. The analyzer is available as packages for the mainstream package management systems, and is easily integratable with most common build systems. The detailed documentation on using PVS-Studio Linux version is available here.
PVS-Studio for Windows is updated with a new user interface! The update affects Vidual Studio plug-in and Standalone PVS-Studio tool.
PVS-Studio now includes the new BlameNotifier tool. It allows to easily organize e-mail notifications with PVS-Studio analyzer messages of developers responsible for the source code that triggers these messages. Supported VCSs are Git, Svn and Mercurial. A detailed guide on managing the analysis results is available here.
The support for analyzing MSBuild projects, which are using the Intel C++ compiler, was implemented in the PVS-Studio command line version. The support for Visual Studio is coming in the near future.
V769. The pointer in the expression equals nullptr. The resulting value is meaningless and should not be used.
V770. Possible usage of a left shift operator instead of a comparison operator.

PVS-Studio 6.09 (October 6, 2016)

If all the diagnostic groups of the analyzer (C++ or C#) are disabled, the analysis of projects of the corresponding language won't start.
We have added proxy support with the authorization during the update check and the trial extension.
The ability to completely disable C/C++ or C# analyzer in .pvsconfig files (//-V::C++ and //-V::C#) is now supported.
In the SonarQube plugin implemented functionality for calculating the LOC metric and determining the reliability remediation effort.
V768. The '!' operator is applied to an enumerator.
V3113. Consider inspecting the loop expression. It is possible that different variables are used inside initializer and iterator.
V3114. IDisposable object is not disposed before method returns.
V3115. It is not recommended to throw exceptions from 'Equals(object obj)' method.
V3116. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. It's possible that the loop will be executed incorrectly or won't be executed at all.
V3117. Constructor parameter is not used.
V3118. A component of TimeSpan is used, which does not represent full time interval. Possibly 'Total*' value was intended instead.

PVS-Studio 6.08 (August 22, 2016)

Visual Studio plug-in no longer supports analysis from command line with '/command' switch. Please use PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe command line tool instead. The detailed description of the tool is available here.
V3108. It is not recommended to return null or throw exceptions from 'ToSting()' method.
V3109. The same sub-expression is present on both sides of the operator. The expression is incorrect or it can be simplified.
V3110. Possible infinite recursion.
V3111. Checking value for null will always return false when generic type is instantiated with a value type.
V3112. An abnormality within similar comparisons. It is possible that a typo is present inside the expression.

PVS-Studio 6.07 (August 8, 2016)

We are heading towards Linux support! Please read How to run PVS-Studio on Linux.
PVS-Studio no longer supports 32-bit operating systems. PVS-Studio analyzer (both C++ and C# modules) requires quite a large amount of RAM for its operation, especially when using multiple processor cores during the analysis. The maximum amount of RAM available on a 32-bit system allows correctly running the analyzer on a single core only (i.e. one process at a time). Moreover, in case of a very large project being analyzed, even this amount of RAM could be insufficient. Because of this, and also because a very small fraction of our users still utilizes 32-bit OS, we've decided to cease support for the 32-bit version of the analyzer. This will allows us to concentrate all of our resources on further development of 64-bit version of the analyzer.
Support for SonarQube continuous quality control system was implemented in the analyzer's command line version. In addition, our installer now contains a dedicated SonarQube plugin, which can be used for integration of analysis results with SonarQube server. The detailed description of this plugin and new analyzer modes is available here.
V763. Parameter is always rewritten in function body before being used.
V764. Possible incorrect order of arguments passed to function.
V765. A compound assignment expression 'X += X + N' is suspicious. Consider inspecting it for a possible error.
V766. An item with the same key has already been added.
V767. Suspicious access to element by a constant index inside a loop.
V3106. Possibly index is out of bound.
V3107. Identical expressions to the left and to the right of compound assignment.

PVS-Studio 6.06 (July 7, 2016)

V758. Reference invalidated, because of the destruction of the temporary object 'unique_ptr', returned by function.
V759. Violated order of exception handlers. Exception caught by handler for base class.
V760. Two identical text blocks detected. The second block starts with NN string.
V761. NN identical blocks were found.
V762. Consider inspecting virtual function arguments. See NN argument of function 'Foo' in derived class and base class.
V3105. The 'a' variable was used after it was assigned through null-conditional operator. NullReferenceException is possible.

PVS-Studio 6.05 (June 9, 2016)

New PVS-Studio command line tool was added; it supports the check of vcxproj and csproj projects (C++ and C#). Now there is no need to use devenv.exe for nightly checks. More details about this tool can be found here.
The support of MSBuild plugin was stopped. Instead of it we suggest using a new PVS-Studio command line tool.
V755. Copying from unsafe data source. Buffer overflow is possible.
V756. The 'X' counter is not used inside a nested loop. Consider inspecting usage of 'Y' counter.
V757. It is possible that an incorrect variable is compared with null after type conversion using 'dynamic_cast'.
V3094. Possible exception when deserializing type. The Ctor(SerializationInfo, StreamingContext) constructor is missing.
V3095. The object was used before it was verified against null. Check lines: N1, N2.
V3096. Possible exception when serializing type. [Serializable] attribute is missing.
V3097. Possible exception: type marked by [Serializable] contains non-serializable members not marked by [NonSerialized].
V3098. The 'continue' operator will terminate 'do { ... } while (false)' loop because the condition is always false.
V3099. Not all the members of type are serialized inside 'GetObjectData' method.
V3100. Unhandled NullReferenceException is possible. Unhandled exceptions in destructor lead to termination of runtime.
V3101. Potential resurrection of 'this' object instance from destructor. Without re-registering for finalization, destructor will not be called a second time on resurrected object.
V3102. Suspicious access to element by a constant index inside a loop.
V3103. A private Ctor(SerializationInfo, StreamingContext) constructor in unsealed type will not be accessible when deserializing derived types.
V3104. 'GetObjectData' implementation in unsealed type is not virtual, incorrect serialization of derived type is possible.

PVS-Studio 6.04 (May 16, 2016)

V753. The '&=' operation always sets a value of 'Foo' variable to zero.
V754. The expression of 'foo(foo(x))' pattern is excessive or contains an error.
V3082. The 'Thread' object is created but is not started. It is possible that a call to 'Start' method is missing.
V3083. Unsafe invocation of event, NullReferenceException is possible. Consider assigning event to a local variable before invoking it.
V3084. Anonymous function is used to unsubscribe from event. No handlers will be unsubscribed, as a separate delegate instance is created for each anonymous function declaration.
V3085. The name of 'X' field/property in a nested type is ambiguous. The outer type contains static field/property with identical name.
V3086. Variables are initialized through the call to the same function. It's probably an error or un-optimized code.
V3087. Type of variable enumerated in 'foreach' is not guaranteed to be castable to the type of collection's elements.
V3088. The expression was enclosed by parentheses twice: ((expression)). One pair of parentheses is unnecessary or misprint is present.
V3089. Initializer of a field marked by [ThreadStatic] attribute will be called once on the first accessing thread. The field will have default value on different threads.
V3090. Unsafe locking on an object.
V3091. Empirical analysis. It is possible that a typo is present inside the string literal. The 'foo' word is suspicious.
V3092. Range intersections are possible within conditional expressions.
V3093. The operator evaluates both operands. Perhaps a short-circuit operator should be used instead.

PVS-Studio 6.03 (April 5, 2016)

V751. Parameter is not used inside method's body.
V752. Creating an object with placement new requires a buffer of large size.
V3072. The 'A' class containing IDisposable members does not itself implement IDisposable.
V3073. Not all IDisposable members are properly disposed. Call 'Dispose' when disposing 'A' class.
V3074. The 'A' class contains 'Dispose' method. Consider making it implement 'IDisposable' interface.
V3075. The operation is executed 2 or more times in succession.
V3076. Comparison with 'double.NaN' is meaningless. Use 'double.IsNaN()' method instead.
V3077. Property setter / event accessor does not utilize its 'value' parameter.
V3078. Original sorting order will be lost after repetitive call to 'OrderBy' method. Use 'ThenBy' method to preserve the original sorting.
V3079. 'ThreadStatic' attribute is applied to a non-static 'A' field and will be ignored.
V3080. Possible null dereference.
V3081. The 'X' counter is not used inside a nested loop. Consider inspecting usage of 'Y' counter.
V051. Some of the references in project are missing or incorrect. The analysis results could be incomplete. Consider making the project fully compilable and building it before analysis.

PVS-Studio 6.02 (March 9, 2016)

V3057. Function receives an odd argument.
V3058. An item with the same key has already been added.
V3059. Consider adding '[Flags]' attribute to the enum.
V3060. A value of variable is not modified. Consider inspecting the expression. It is possible that other value should be present instead of '0'.
V3061. Parameter 'A' is always rewritten in method body before being used.
V3062. An object is used as an argument to its own method. Consider checking the first actual argument of the 'Foo' method.
V3063. A part of conditional expression is always true/false.
V3064. Division or mod division by zero.
V3065. Parameter is not utilized inside method's body.
V3066. Possible incorrect order of arguments passed to 'Foo' method.
V3067. It is possible that 'else' block was forgotten or commented out, thus altering the program's operation logics.
V3068. Calling overrideable class member from constructor is dangerous.
V3069. It's possible that the line was commented out improperly, thus altering the program's operation logics.
V3070. Uninitialized variables are used when initializing the 'A' variable.
V3071. The object is returned from inside 'using' block. 'Dispose' will be invoked before exiting method.

PVS-Studio 6.01 (February 3, 2016)

V736. The behavior is undefined for arithmetic or comparisons with pointers that do not point to members of the same array.
V737. It is possible that ',' comma is missing at the end of the string.
V738. Temporary anonymous object is used.
V739. EOF should not be compared with a value of the 'char' type. Consider using the 'int' type.
V740. Because NULL is defined as 0, the exception is of the 'int' type. Keyword 'nullptr' could be used for 'pointer' type exception.
V741. The following pattern is used: throw (a, b);. It is possible that type name was omitted: throw MyException(a, b);..
V742. Function receives an address of a 'char' type variable instead of pointer to a buffer.
V743. The memory areas must not overlap. Use 'memmove' function.
V744. Temporary object is immediately destroyed after being created. Consider naming the object.
V745. A 'wchar_t *' type string is incorrectly converted to 'BSTR' type string.
V746. Object slicing. An exception should be caught by reference rather than by value.
V747. An odd expression inside parenthesis. It is possible that a function name is missing.
V748. Memory for 'getline' function should be allocated only by 'malloc' or 'realloc' functions. Consider inspecting the first parameter of 'getline' function.
V749. Destructor of the object will be invoked a second time after leaving the object's scope.
V750. BSTR string becomes invalid. Notice that BSTR strings store their length before start of the text.
V816. It is more efficient to catch exception by reference rather than by value.
V3042. Possible NullReferenceException. The '?.' and '.' operators are used for accessing members of the same object.
V3043. The code's operational logic does not correspond with its formatting.
V3044. WPF: writing and reading are performed on a different Dependency Properties.
V3045. WPF: the names of the property registered for DependencyProperty, and of the property used to access it, do not correspond with each other.
V3046. WPF: the type registered for DependencyProperty does not correspond with the type of the property used to access it.
V3047. WPF: A class containing registered property does not correspond with a type that is passed as the ownerType.type.
V3048. WPF: several Dependency Properties are registered with a same name within the owner type.
V3049. WPF: readonly field of 'DependencyProperty' type is not initialized.
V3050. Possibly an incorrect HTML. The </XX> closing tag was encountered, while the </YY> tag was expected.
V3051. An excessive type cast or check. The object is already of the same type.
V3052. The original exception object was swallowed. Stack of original exception could be lost.
V3053. An excessive expression. Examine the substrings "abc" and "abcd".
V3054. Potentially unsafe double-checked locking. Use volatile variable(s) or synchronization primitives to avoid this.
V3055. Suspicious assignment inside the condition expression of 'if/while/for' operator.
V3056. Consider reviewing the correctness of 'X' item's usage.

PVS-Studio 6.00 (December 22, 2015)

Static code analysis for C# added! More than 40 diagnostics in first release.
We are cancelling support for Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008.
V734. Searching for the longer substring is meaningless after searching for the shorter substring.
V735. Possibly an incorrect HTML. The "</XX" closing tag was encountered, while the "</YY" tag was expected.
V3001. There are identical sub-expressions to the left and to the right of the 'foo' operator.
V3002. The switch statement does not cover all values of the enum.
V3003. The use of 'if (A) {...} else if (A) {...}' pattern was detected. There is a probability of logical error presence.
V3004. The 'then' statement is equivalent to the 'else' statement.
V3005. The 'x' variable is assigned to itself.
V3006. The object was created but it is not being used. The 'throw' keyword could be missing.
V3007. Odd semicolon ';' after 'if/for/while' operator.
V3008. The 'x' variable is assigned values twice successively. Perhaps this is a mistake.
V3009. It's odd that this method always returns one and the same value of NN.
V3010. The return value of function 'Foo' is required to be utilized.
V3011. Two opposite conditions were encountered. The second condition is always false.
V3012. The '?:' operator, regardless of its conditional expression, always returns one and the same value.
V3013. It is odd that the body of 'Foo_1' function is fully equivalent to the body of 'Foo_2' function.
V3014. It is likely that a wrong variable is being incremented inside the 'for' operator. Consider reviewing 'X'.
V3015. It is likely that a wrong variable is being compared inside the 'for' operator. Consider reviewing 'X'.
V3016. The variable 'X' is being used for this loop and for the outer loop.
V3017. A pattern was detected: A || (A && ...). The expression is excessive or contains a logical error.
V3018. Consider inspecting the application's logic. It's possible that 'else' keyword is missing.
V3019. It is possible that an incorrect variable is compared with null after type conversion using 'as' keyword.
V3020. An unconditional 'break/continue/return/goto' within a loop.
V3021. There are two 'if' statements with identical conditional expressions. The first 'if' statement contains method return. This means that the second 'if' statement is senseless.
V3022. Expression is always true/false.
V3023. Consider inspecting this expression. The expression is excessive or contains a misprint.
V3024. An odd precise comparison. Consider using a comparison with defined precision: Math.Abs(A - B) < Epsilon or Math.Abs(A - B) > Epsilon.
V3025. Incorrect format. Consider checking the N format items of the 'Foo' function.
V3026. The constant NN is being utilized. The resulting value could be inaccurate. Consider using the KK constant.
V3027. The variable was utilized in the logical expression before it was verified against null in the same logical expression.
V3028. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. Initial and final values of the iterator are the same.
V3029. The conditional expressions of the 'if' operators situated alongside each other are identical.
V3030. Recurring check. This condition was already verified in previous line.
V3031. An excessive check can be simplified. The operator '||' operator is surrounded by opposite expressions 'x' and '!x'.
V3032. Waiting on this expression is unreliable, as compiler may optimize some of the variables. Use volatile variable(s) or synchronization primitives to avoid this.
V3033. It is possible that this 'else' branch must apply to the previous 'if' statement.
V3034. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '!=' should be used here.
V3035. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '+=' should be used here.
V3036. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '-=' should be used here.
V3037. An odd sequence of assignments of this kind: A = B; B = A;.
V3038. The 'first' argument of 'Foo' function is equal to the 'second' argument
V3039. Consider inspecting the 'Foo' function call. Defining an absolute path to the file or directory is considered a poor style.
V3040. The expression contains a suspicious mix of integer and real types.
V3041. The expression was implicitly cast from integer type to real type. Consider utilizing an explicit type cast to avoid the loss of a fractional part.

PVS-Studio 5.31 (November 3, 2015)

False positive quantity is reduced in some diagnostics.

PVS-Studio 5.30 (October 29, 2015)

Double click navigation support on multiple-line messages was added.
An access error during the Visual C++ preprocessor start for a check of files, using #import directive was removed.
An error of Compiler Monitoring preprocessing more than 10 minutes, corrected.
Incorrect installer's work, operating on systems that have 2015 Visual Studio only, was corrected.
New diagnostic - V728. An excessive check can be simplified. The '||' operator is surrounded by opposite expressions 'x' and '!x'.
New diagnostic - V729. Function body contains the 'X' label that is not used by any 'goto' statements.
New diagnostic - V730. Not all members of a class are initialized inside the constructor.
New diagnostic - V731. The variable of char type is compared with pointer to string.
New diagnostic - V732. Unary minus operator does not modify a bool type value.
New diagnostic - V733. It is possible that macro expansion resulted in incorrect evaluation order.

PVS-Studio 5.29 (September 22, 2015)

Visual Studio 2015 supported.
Windows 10 supported.
New diagnostic - V727. Return value of 'wcslen' function is not multiplied by 'sizeof(wchar_t)'.

PVS-Studio 5.28 (August 10, 2015)

New interface of the settings pages Detectable Errors, Don't Check Files, and Keyword Message Filering.
A new utility PlogConverter was added to convert XML plog files into formats txt, html, and CSV. Check the documentation for details.

PVS-Studio 5.27 (July 28, 2015)

New diagnostic - V207. A 32-bit variable is utilized as a reference to a pointer. A write outside the bounds of this variable may occur.
New diagnostic - V726. An attempt to free memory containing the 'int A[10]' array by using the 'free(A)' function.
New feature - Analyzer Work Statistics (Diagrams). PVS-Studio analyzer can gather its' operational statistics - the number of detected messages (including suppressed ones) across different severity levels and rule sets. Gathered statistics can be filtered and represented as a diagram in a Microsoft Excel file, showing the change dynamics for messages in the project under analysis. See details in documentation.
Analysis of preprocessed files removed from Standalone.

PVS-Studio 5.26 (June 30, 2015)

New diagnostic - V723. Function returns a pointer to the internal string buffer of a local object, which will be destroyed.
New diagnostic - V724. Converting integers or pointers to BOOL can lead to a loss of high-order bits. Non-zero value can become 'FALSE'.
New diagnostic - V725. A dangerous cast of 'this' to 'void*' type in the 'Base' class, as it is followed by a subsequent cast to 'Class' type.
Message Suppression support was implemented for CLMonitoring/Standalone.
2nd and 3rd levels of analyzer warnings are accessible in Trial Mode.

PVS-Studio 5.25 (May 12, 2015)

New diagnostic - V722. An abnormality within similar comparisons. It is possible that a typo is present inside the expression.
Improved the responsiveness of Quick Filters and Analyzer\Levels buttons in Output Window.
'False Alarms' output window filter was moved into settings.
Fix for 'An item with the same key has already been added' error when using message suppression

PVS-Studio 5.24 (April 10, 2015)

New diagnostic - V721. The VARIANT_BOOL type is utilized incorrectly. The true value (VARIANT_TRUE) is defined as -1.
New trial mode. Please refer here.
A new message suppression mechanism now can be utilized together with command line mode for project files (vcproj/vcxproj) to organize a distribution of analysis logs with newly discovered warnings (in plain text and html formats) by email. More details on command line mode and utilizing analyzer within continuous integration systems.

PVS-Studio 5.23 (March 17, 2015)

64-bit analysis is greatly improved. Now if you want to fix major 64-bit issues just fix all 64 Level 1 messages.
You can use PVS-Studio-Updater.exe for automatic update of PVS-Studio on build-server. See details here.
New diagnostic - V719. The switch statement does not cover all values of the enum.
New diagnostic - V720. It is advised to utilize the 'SuspendThread' function only when developing a debugger (see documentation for details).
New diagnostic - V221. Suspicious sequence of types castings: pointer -> memsize -> 32-bit integer.
New diagnostic - V2013. Consider inspecting the correctness of handling the N argument in the 'Foo' function.

PVS-Studio 5.22 (February 17, 2015)

New diagnostic - V718. The 'Foo' function should not be called from 'DllMain' function.
Fix for CLMonitoring operation on C++/CLI projects.
Memory leak fix for CLMonitoring of long-running processes.
Include\symbol reference search for Standalone.
Message Suppression memory usage optimization.
Message Suppression correctly handles multi-project analyzer messages (as, for example, messages generated on common h files on different IDE projects).
Several crucial improvements in (Message Suppression).

PVS-Studio 5.21 (December 11, 2014)

We are cancelling support for the Embarcadero RAD Studio IDE.
We are cancelling support for OpenMP diagnostics (VivaMP rule set)
New diagnostic - V711. It is dangerous to create a local variable within a loop with a same name as a variable controlling this loop.
New diagnostic - V712. Be advised that compiler may delete this cycle or make it infinity. Use volatile variable(s) or synchronization primitives to avoid this.
New diagnostic - V713. The pointer was utilized in the logical expression before it was verified against nullptr in the same logical expression.
New diagnostic - V714. Variable is not passed into foreach loop by a reference, but its value is changed inside of the loop.
New diagnostic - V715. The 'while' operator has empty body. Suspicious pattern detected.
New diagnostic - V716. Suspicious type conversion: HRESULT -> BOOL (BOOL -> HRESULT).
New diagnostic - V717. It is strange to cast object of base class V to derived class U.

PVS-Studio 5.20 (November 12, 2014)

New diagnostic - V706. Suspicious division: sizeof(X) / Value. Size of every element in X array does not equal to divisor.
New diagnostic - V707. Giving short names to global variables is considered to be bad practice.
New diagnostic - V708. Dangerous construction is used: 'm[x] = m.size()', where 'm' is of 'T' class. This may lead to undefined behavior.
New diagnostic - V709. Suspicious comparison found: 'a == b == c'. Remember that 'a == b == c' is not equal to 'a == b && b == c.
New diagnostic - V710. Suspicious declaration found. There is no point to declare constant reference to a number.
New diagnostic - V2012. Possibility of decreased performance. It is advised to pass arguments to std::unary_function/std::binary_function template as references.
New feature - Mass Suppression of Analyzer Messages. Sometimes, during deployment of static analysis, especially at large-scale projects, the developer has no desire (or even has no means of) to correct hundreds or even thousands of analyzer's messages which were generated on the existing source code base. In this situation, the need arises to "suppress" all of the analyzer's messages generated on the current state of the code, and, from that point, to be able to see only the messages related to the newly written or modified code. As such code was not yet thoroughly debugged and tested, it can potentially contain a large number of errors.

PVS-Studio 5.19 (September 18, 2014)

New diagnostic - V698. strcmp()-like functions can return not only the values -1, 0 and 1, but any values.
New diagnostic - V699. Consider inspecting the 'foo = bar = baz ? .... : ....' expression. It is possible that 'foo = bar == baz ? .... : ....' should be used here instead.
New diagnostic - V700. Consider inspecting the 'T foo = foo = x;' expression. It is odd that variable is initialized through itself.
New diagnostic - V701. realloc() possible leak: when realloc() fails in allocating memory, original pointer is lost. Consider assigning realloc() to a temporary pointer.
New diagnostic - V702. Classes should always be derived from std::exception (and alike) as 'public'.
New diagnostic - V703. It is odd that the 'foo' field in derived class overwrites field in base class.
New diagnostic - V704. 'this == 0' comparison should be avoided - this comparison is always false on newer compilers.
New diagnostic - V705. It is possible that 'else' block was forgotten or commented out, thus altering the program's operation logics.

PVS-Studio 5.18 (July 30, 2014)

ClMonitoring - automatic detection of compiler's platform.
ClMonitoring - performance increase resulting from the reduction of an impact of antiviral software during preprocessing of analyzed files.
ClMonitoring - incorrect handling of 64-bit processes resulting from a system update for .NET Framework 4 was fixed.
New diagnostic - V695. Range intersections are possible within conditional expressions.
New diagnostic - V696. The 'continue' operator will terminate 'do { ... } while (FALSE)' loop because the condition is always false.
New diagnostic - V697. A number of elements in the allocated array is equal to size of a pointer in bytes.
New diagnostic - V206. Explicit conversion from 'void *' to 'int *'.
New diagnostic - V2011. Consider inspecting signed and unsigned function arguments. See NN argument of function 'Foo' in derived class and base class.

PVS-Studio 5.17 (May 20, 2014)

New diagnostic - V690. The class implements a copy constructor/operator=, but lacks the the operator=/copy constructor.
New diagnostic - V691. Empirical analysis. It is possible that a typo is present inside the string literal. The 'foo' word is suspicious.
New diagnostic - V692. An inappropriate attempt to append a null character to a string. To determine the length of a string by 'strlen' function correctly, a string ending with a null terminator should be used in the first place.
New diagnostic - V693. Consider inspecting conditional expression of the loop. It is possible that 'i < X.size()' should be used instead of 'X.size()'.
New diagnostic - V694. The condition (ptr - const_value) is only false if the value of a pointer equals a magic constant.
New diagnostic - V815. Decreased performance. Consider replacing the expression 'AA' with 'BB'.
New diagnostic - V2010. Handling of two different exception types is identical.

PVS-Studio 5.16 (April 29, 2014)

Support of C++/CLI projects was greatly improved.
TFSRipper plugin was removed.
Fix for crash in Standalone when installing in non-default location on a 64-bit system.
Fixed issue with hiding of diagnostic messages in some case.

PVS-Studio 5.15 (April 14, 2014)

New diagnostic - V689. The destructor of the 'Foo' class is not declared as a virtual. It is possible that a smart pointer will not destroy an object correctly.
Several crucial improvements in Compiler Monitoring in PVS-Studio.

PVS-Studio 5.14 (March 12, 2014)

New option "DIsable 64-bit Analysis" in Specific Analyzer Settings option page can improve analysis speed and decrease .plog file size.
New feature: Compiler Monitoring in PVS-Studio.
Fixed problem with incremental analysis notification with auto hide PVS-Studio Output Window.
New diagnostic - V687. Size of an array calculated by the sizeof() operator was added to a pointer. It is possible that the number of elements should be calculated by sizeof(A)/sizeof(A[0]).
New diagnostic - V688. The 'foo' local variable possesses the same name as one of the class members, which can result in a confusion.

PVS-Studio 5.13 (February 5, 2014)

Support for Embarcadero RAD Studio XE5 was implemented.
New diagnostic - V684. A value of variable is not modified. Consider inspecting the expression. It is possible that '1' should be present instead of '0'.
New diagnostic - V685. Consider inspecting the return statement. The expression contains a comma.
New diagnostic - V686. A pattern was detected: A || (A && ...). The expression is excessive or contains a logical error.

PVS-Studio 5.12 (December 23, 2013)

Fix for the issue with SolutionDir property when direct integration of the analyzer into MSBuild system is utilized.
The analysis can now be launched from within the context menu of Solution Explorer tool window.
The 'ID' column will now be hidden by default in the PVS-Studio Output toolwindow. It is possible to enable it again by using the Show Columns -> ID context menu command.
New diagnostic - V682. Suspicious literal is present: '/r'. It is possible that a backslash should be used here instead: '\r'.
New diagnostic - V683. Consider inspecting the loop expression. It is possible that the 'i' variable should be incremented instead of the 'n' variable.

PVS-Studio 5.11 (November 6, 2013)

Support for the release version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 was implemented.
New diagnostic - V680. The 'delete A, B' expression only destroys the 'A' object. Then the ',' operator returns a resulting value from the right side of the expression.
New diagnostic - V681. The language standard does not define an order in which the 'Foo' functions will be called during evaluation of arguments.

PVS-Studio 5.10 (October 7, 2013)

Fixed the issue with the analyzer when Visual Studio is called with the parameter /useenv: devenv.exe /useenv.
VS2012 has finally got support for Clang so that it can be used as the preprocessor. It means that PVS-Studio users will see a significant performance boost in VS2012.
Several crucial improvements were made to the analyzer's performance when parsing code in VS2012.
The PVS-Studio distribution package now ships with a new application Standalone.
You can now export analysis results into a .CSV-file to handle them in Excel.
Support of precompiled headers in Visual Studio and MSBuild was greatly improved.
New diagnostic - V676. It is incorrect to compare the variable of BOOL type with TRUE.
New diagnostic - V677. Custom declaration of a standard type. The declaration from system header files should be used instead.
New diagnostic - V678. An object is used as an argument to its own method. Consider checking the first actual argument of the 'Foo' function.
New diagnostic - V679. The 'X' variable was not initialized. This variable is passed by a reference to the 'Foo' function in which its value will be utilized.

PVS-Studio 5.06 (August 13, 2013)

Fix for incorrect number of verified files when using 'Check Open File(s)' command in Visual Studio 2010.
New diagnostic - V673. More than N bits are required to store the value, but the expression evaluates to the T type which can only hold K bits.
New diagnostic - V674. The expression contains a suspicious mix of integer and real types.
New diagnostic - V675. Writing into the read-only memory.
New diagnostic - V814. Decreased performance. The 'strlen' function was called multiple times inside the body of a loop.

PVS-Studio 5.05 (May 28, 2013)

Support for proxy server with authorization was implemented for trial extension window.
An issue with using certain special characters in diagnostic message filters was resolved.
A portion of 'Common Analyzer Settings' page options and all of the options from 'Customer Specific Settings' page were merged together into the new page: Specific Analyzer Settings.
A new SaveModifiedLog option was implemented. It allows you to define the behavior of 'Save As' dialog for a new\modified analysis report log (always ask, save automatically, do not save).
Customer diagnostics (V20xx) were assigned to a separate diagnostics group (CS - Customer Specific).
A new menu command was added: "Check Open File(s)". It allows starting the analysis on all of the C/C++ source files that are currently open in IDE text editor.

PVS-Studio 5.04 (May 14, 2013)

Support has been implemented for C++Builder XE4. Now PVS-Studio supports the following versions of C++Builder: XE4, XE3 Update 1, XE2, XE, 2010, 2009.
New diagnostic - V669. The argument is a non-constant reference. The analyzer is unable to determine the position at which this argument is being modified. It is possible that the function contains an error.
New diagnostic - V670. An uninitialized class member is used to initialize another member. Remember that members are initialized in the order of their declarations inside a class.
New diagnostic - V671. It is possible that the 'swap' function interchanges a variable with itself.
New diagnostic - V672. There is probably no need in creating a new variable here. One of the function's arguments possesses the same name and this argument is a reference.
New diagnostic - V128. A variable of the memsize type is read from a stream. Consider verifying the compatibility of 32 and 64 bit versions of the application in the context of a stored data.
New diagnostic - V813. Decreased performance. The argument should probably be rendered as a constant pointer/reference.
New diagnostic - V2009. Consider passing the 'Foo' argument as a constant pointer/reference.

PVS-Studio 5.03 (April 16, 2013)

Enhanced analysis/interface performance when checking large projects and generating a large number of diagnostic messages (the total number of unfiltered messages).
Fixed the issue with incorrect integration of the PVS-Studio plugin into the C++Builder 2009/2010/XE environments after installation.
Fixed the bug with the trial-mode.
The analyzer can now be set to generate relative paths to source files in its log files.
The analyzer now supports direct integration into the MSBuild build system.
Integrated Help Language option added to Customer's Settings page. The setting allows you to select a language to be used for integrated help on the diagnostic messages (a click to the message error code in PVS-Studio output window) and online documentation (the PVS-Studio -> Help -> Open PVS-Studio Documentation (html, online) menu command), which are also available at our site. This setting will not change the language of IDE plug-in's interface and messages produced by the analyzer.
Fix for Command line analysis mode in Visual Studio 2012 in the case of project background loading.
New diagnostic - V665. Possibly, the usage of '#pragma warning(default: X)' is incorrect in this context. The '#pragma warning(push/pop)' should be used instead.
New diagnostic - V666. Consider inspecting NN argument of the function 'Foo'. It is possible that the value does not correspond with the length of a string which was passed with the YY argument.
New diagnostic - V667. The 'throw' operator does not possess any arguments and is not situated within the 'catch' block.
New diagnostic - V668. There is no sense in testing the pointer against null, as the memory was allocated using the 'new' operator. The exception will be generated in the case of memory allocation error.
New diagnostic -V812. Decreased performance. Ineffective use of the 'count' function. It can possibly be replaced by the call to the 'find' function.

PVS-Studio 5.02 (March 6, 2013)

Incorrect navigation in C++Builder modules that contain several header/source files was fixed.
The option for inserting user-specified comments while performing false alarm mark-ups (for example, to provide the automatic documentation generation systems with appropriate descriptions) was implemented.
An issue of incorrectly starting up a C++ preprocessor for some of the files utilizing precompiled headers was fixed.
New diagnostic - V663. Infinite loop is possible. The 'cin.eof()' condition is insufficient to break from the loop. Consider adding the 'cin.fail()' function call to the conditional expression.
New diagnostic - V664. The pointer is being dereferenced on the initialization list before it is verified against null inside the body of the constructor function.
New diagnostic - V811. Decreased performance. Excessive type casting: string -> char * -> string.

PVS-Studio 5.01 (February 13, 2013)

Support has been implemented for several previous versions of C++Builder. Now PVS-Studio supports the following versions of C++Builder: XE3 Update 1, XE2, XE, 2010, 2009.
A bug in C++Builder version with incremental analysis starting-up incorrectly in several situations was fixed.
Occasional incorrect placement of false alarm markings for C++Builder version was fixed.
Incorrect display of localized filenames containing regional-specific characters in C++Builder version was fixed.
An issue with opening source files during diagnostic message navigation in C++Builder version was resolved.
The issue was fixed of system includes paths being resolved incompletely when starting the preprocessor for the analyzer in C++ Builder versions.
New diagnostic - V661. A suspicious expression 'A[B < C]'. Probably meant 'A[B] < C'.
New diagnostic - V662. Consider inspecting the loop expression. Different containers are utilized for setting up initial and final values of the iterator.

PVS-Studio 5.00 (January 31, 2013)

Support for the integration to Embarcadero RAD Studio, or Embarcadero C++ Builder to be more precise, was added! As of this moment, PVS-Studio diagnostics capabilities are available to the users of C++ Builder. While in the past PVS-Studio could be conveniently utilized only from within Visual Studio environment, but now C++ developers who choses Embarcadero products will be able to fully utilize PVS-Studio static analyzer as well. Presently, the supported versions are XE2 and XE3, including the XE3 Update 1 with 64-bit C++ compiler.
Microsoft Design Language (formerly known as Metro Language) C++/CX Windows 8 Store (WinRT) projects on x86/ARM platforms and Windows Phone 8 projects support was implemented.
A fix for the users of Clang-preprocessor in Visual Studio version was implemented. Previously it was impossible to use Clang as a preprocessor while analyzing projects utilizing the Boost library because of the preprocessing errors. Now these issues were resolved. This significantly decreased the time it takes to analyze Boost projects with the help of Clang preprocessor.
The obsolete Viva64 options page was removed.
V004 message text was modified to provide a more correct description.
New diagnostic - V810. Decreased performance. The 'A' function was called several times with identical arguments. The result should possibly be saved to a temporary variable, which then could be used while calling the 'B' function.
New diagnostic - V2008. Cyclomatic complexity: NN. Consider refactoring the 'Foo' function.
New diagnostic - V657. It's odd that this function always returns one and the same value of NN.
New diagnostic - V658. A value is being subtracted from the unsigned variable. This can result in an overflow. In such a case, the comparison operation can potentially behave unexpectedly.
New diagnostic - V659. Declarations of functions with 'Foo' name differ in the 'const' keyword only, but the bodies of these functions have different composition. This is suspicious and can possibly be an error.
New diagnostic - V660. The program contains an unused label and a function call: 'CC:AA()'. It's possible that the following was intended: 'CC::AA()'.

PVS-Studio 4.77 (December 11, 2012)

Acquisition of compilation parameters for VS2012 and VS2010 was improved through expansion of support for MSBuild-based projects.
New diagnostic - V654. The condition of loop is always true/false.
New diagnostic - V655. The strings was concatenated but are not utilized. Consider inspecting the expression.
New diagnostic - V656. Variables are initialized through the call to the same function. It's probably an error or un-optimized code.
New diagnostic - V809. Verifying that a pointer value is not NULL is not required. The 'if (ptr != NULL)' check can be removed.

PVS-Studio 4.76 (November 23, 2012)

Some bugs were fixed.

PVS-Studio 4.75 (November 12, 2012)

An issue with checking Qt-based projects which manifested itself under certain conditions was solved (details in blog).
New diagnostic - V646. Consider inspecting the application's logic. It's possible that 'else' keyword is missing.
New diagnostic - V647. The value of 'A' type is assigned to the pointer of 'B' type.
New diagnostic - V648. Priority of the '&&' operation is higher than that of the '||' operation.
New diagnostic - V649. There are two 'if' statements with identical conditional expressions. The first 'if' statement contains function return. This means that the second 'if' statement is senseless.
New diagnostic - V650. Type casting operation is utilized 2 times in succession. Next, the '+' operation is executed. Probably meant: (T1)((T2)a + b).
New diagnostic - V651. An odd operation of the 'sizeof(X)/sizeof(T)' kind is performed, where 'X' is of the 'class' type.
New diagnostic - V652. The operation is executed 3 or more times in succession.
New diagnostic - V653. A suspicious string consisting of two parts is used for array initialization. It is possible that a comma is missing.
New diagnostic - V808. An array/object was declared but was not utilized.
New diagnostic - V2007. This expression can be simplified. One of the operands in the operation equals NN. Probably it is a mistake.

PVS-Studio 4.74 (October 16, 2012)

New option "Incremental Results Display Depth was added. This setting defines the mode of message display level in PVS-Studio Output window for the results of incremental analysis. Setting the display level depth here (correspondingly, Level 1 only; Levels 1 and 2; Levels 1, 2 and 3) will enable automatic activation of these display levels on each incremental analysis procedure. The "Preserve_Current_Levels" on the other hand will preserve the existing display setting.
New option "External Tool Path" was added. This field allows defining an absolute path to any external tool, which could then be executed with the "Send this message to external tool" context menu command of the PVS-Studio Output window. The mentioned menu command is available only for a single simultaneously selected message from the results table, allowing the passing of the command line parameters specified in the ExternalToolCommandLine field to the utility from here. The detailed description of this mode together with usage examples is available here.

PVS-Studio 4.73 (September 17, 2012)

Issues with incorrect processing of some Visual Studio 2012 C++11 constructs were fixed.
A complete support for Visual Studio 2012 themes was implemented.
The search field for the 'Project' column was added to the PVS-Studio Output Window quick filters.
The included Clang external preprocessor was updated.
Support for the TenAsys INtime platform was implemented.

PVS-Studio 4.72 (August 30, 2012)

Support for the release version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 was implemented.
A new version of SourceGrid component will be utilized, solving several issues with PVS-Studio Output Window operation.
Support for diagnostics of issues inside STL library using STLport was implemented.
New diagnostic - V637. Two opposite conditions were encountered. The second condition is always false.
New diagnostic - V638. A terminal null is present inside a string. The '\0xNN' characters were encountered. Probably meant: '\xNN'.
New diagnostic - V639. Consider inspecting the expression for function call. It is possible that one of the closing ')' brackets was positioned incorrectly.
New diagnostic - V640. Consider inspecting the application's logic. It is possible that several statements should be braced.
New diagnostic - V641. The size of the allocated memory buffer is not a multiple of the element size.
New diagnostic - V642. Saving the function result inside the 'byte' type variable is inappropriate. The significant bits could be lost breaking the program's logic.
New diagnostic - V643. Unusual pointer arithmetic. The value of the 'char' type is being added to the string pointer.
New diagnostic - V644. A suspicious function declaration. It is possible that the T type object was meant to be created.
New diagnostic - V645. The function call could lead to the buffer overflow. The bounds should not contain the size of the buffer, but a number of characters it can hold.

PVS-Studio 4.71 (July 20, 2012)

New diagnostic - V629. Consider inspecting the expression. Bit shifting of the 32-bit value with a subsequent expansion to the 64-bit type.
New diagnostic - V630. The 'malloc' function is used to allocate memory for an array of objects which are classes containing constructors/destructors.
New diagnostic - V631. Consider inspecting the 'Foo' function call. Defining an absolute path to the file or directory is considered a poor style.
New diagnostic - V632. Consider inspecting the NN argument of the 'Foo' function. It is odd that the argument is of the 'T' type.
New diagnostic - V633. Consider inspecting the expression. Probably the '!=' should be used here.
New diagnostic - V634. The priority of the '+' operation is higher than that of the '<<' operation. It's possible that parentheses should be used in the expression.
New diagnostic - V635. Consider inspecting the expression. The length should probably be multiplied by the sizeof(wchar_t).

PVS-Studio 4.70 (July 3, 2012)

Visual Studio 2012 RC support was implemented. At present the analyzer does not provide a complete support for every new syntax construct introduced with Visual Studio 2012 RC. Also, there is an additional issue concerning the speed of the analysis, as we utilize Clang preprocessor to improve the analyzer's performance. Currently, Clang is unable to preprocess some of the new Visual C++ 2012 header files, and that means that the notably slower cl.exe preprocessor from Visual C++ will have to be utilized most of the time instead. In the default mode the correct preprocessor will be set by PVS-Studio automatically so it will not require any interaction from the user. Despite the aforementioned issues, PVS-Studio can now be fully utilized from Visual Studio 2012 RC IDE.
New diagnostic - V615. An odd explicit conversion from 'float *' type to 'double *' type.
New diagnostic - V616. The 'Foo' named constant with the value of 0 is used in the bitwise operation.
New diagnostic - V617. Consider inspecting the condition. An argument of the '|' bitwise operation always contains a non-zero value.
New diagnostic - V618. It's dangerous to call the 'Foo' function in such a manner, as the line being passed could contain format specification. The example of the safe code: printf("%s", str);.
New diagnostic - V619. An array is being utilized as a pointer to single object.
New diagnostic - V620. It's unusual that the expression of sizeof(T)*N kind is being summed with the pointer to T type.
New diagnostic - V621. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. It's possible that the loop will be executed incorrectly or won't be executed at all.
New diagnostic - V622. Consider inspecting the 'switch' statement. It's possible that the first 'case' operator in missing.
New diagnostic - V623. Consider inspecting the '?:' operator. A temporary object is being created and subsequently destroyed.
New diagnostic - V624. The constant NN is being utilized. The resulting value could be inaccurate. Consider using the M_NN constant from <math.h>.
New diagnostic - V625. Consider inspecting the 'for' operator. Initial and final values of the iterator are the same.
New diagnostic - V626. Consider checking for misprints. It's possible that ',' should be replaced by ';'.
New diagnostic - V627. Consider inspecting the expression. The argument of sizeof() is the macro which expands to a number.
New diagnostic - V628. It's possible that the line was commented out improperly, thus altering the program's operation logics.
New diagnostic - V2006. Implicit type conversion from enum type to integer type.

PVS-Studio 4.62 (May 30, 2012)

The support for the MinGW gcc preprocessor was implemented, enabling the verification of such projects as the ones which allow their compilation through MinGW compilers. Also, integration of the analyzer into build systems of such projects is similar to utilization of the analyzer with other projects lacking MSVC .sln files as it is described in detail in the corresponding documentation. As a reminder, the project which does include .sln file could be verified through command line in a regular way as well, not requiring the direct integration of the analyzer into the its' build system.

PVS-Studio 4.61 (May 22, 2012)

Navigation for messages containing references to multiple lines was improved. Some of diagnostic messages (V595 for example) are related to several lines of source code at once. Previously, the 'Line' column of PVS-Studio Output Window contained only a single line number while other lines were only mentioned in the text of such message itself. This was inconvenient for the navigation. As of this version the fields of the 'Line' column could contain several line numbers allowing navigation for each individual line.
A new build of Clang is included which contains several minor bug fixes. PVS-Studio uses Clang as an alternative preprocessor. Please note that PVS-Studio does not utilize Clang static analysis diagnostics.
New diagnostic - V612. An unconditional 'break/continue/return/goto' within a loop.
New diagnostic - V613. Strange pointer arithmetic with 'malloc/new'.
New diagnostic - V614. Uninitialized variable 'Foo' used.

PVS-Studio 4.60 (April 18, 2012)

A new "Optimization" (OP) group allows the diagnostics of potential optimizations. It is a static analysis rule set for identification of C/C++/C++11 source code sections which could be optimized. It should be noted that the analyzer solves the task of optimization for the narrow area of micro-optimizations. A full list of diagnostic cases is available in the documentation (codes V801-V807).
A total number of false positive messages for the 64-bit analyzer (Viva64) was decreased substantially.
Messages will not be produced for autogenerated files (MIDL).
Logics behind prompting save dialog for analysis report were improved.
Issue with Visual Studio Chinese localized version was fixed (the zh locale).
New diagnostic V610. Undefined behavior. Check the shift operator.
New diagnostic V611. The memory allocation and deallocation methods are incompatible.

PVS-Studio 4.56 (March 14, 2012)

TraceMode option was added to Common Analyzer Settings. This setting could be used to specify the tracing mode (logging of a program's execution path).
An issue concerning the verification of Itanium-based projects was fixed.
An issue concerning the calling of the 64-bit version of clang.exe instead of the 32-bit one from within the 32-bit Windows while checking the project with selected x64 architecture was fixed.
A number of cores to be used for incremental analysis were changed. As of now the regular analysis (Check Solution/project/file) will utilize the exact number of cores specified in the settings. The incremental analysis will use a different value: if the number of cores from the settings is greater than (number of system cores - 1) and there is more than one core in the system then the (number of system cores - 1) will be utilized for it; otherwise the value from the settings will be used. Simply put the incremental analysis will utilize one core less compared to the regular one for the purpose of easing the load on the system.
New diagnostic V608. Recurring sequence of explicit type casts.
New diagnostic V609. Divide or mod by zero.

PVS-Studio 4.55 (February 28, 2012)

New trial extension window.
A crash which occurs after reloading current project while code analysis is running was fixed.
The installer (in case it is the first-time installation) now provides the option to enable PVS-Studio incremental analysis. In case PVS-Studio was installed on system before this option will not be displayed. Incremental analysis could be enabled or disabled through the "Incremental Analysis after Build" PVS-Studio menu command.
As of now the default number of threads for analysis is equal to the number of processors minus one. This could be modified through the 'ThreadCount' option in PVS-Studio settings.
New article in documentation: "PVS-Studio's incremental analysis mode".
Additional functionality for the command line version mode — it is now possible to process several files at once, similar to the compiler batch mode (cl.exe file1.cpp file2.cpp). A more detailed description on command line mode is available in the documentation.
A support for Microsoft Visual Studio ARMV4 project types was removed.
New diagnostic V604. It is odd that the number of iterations in the loop equals to the size of the pointer.
New diagnostic V605. Consider verifying the expression. An unsigned value is compared to the number - NN.
New diagnostic V606. Ownerless token 'Foo'.
New diagnostic V607. Ownerless expression 'Foo'.

PVS-Studio 4.54 (February 1, 2012)

New trial mode was implemented. As of now only a total number of clicks on messages will be limited. More details can be found in our blog or documentation.
New menu command "Disable Incremental Analysis until IDE restart" was added. Sometimes disabling the incremental analysis can be convenient, for instance when editing some core h-files, as it forces a large number of files to be recompiled. But it should not be disabled permanently, only temporary, as one can easily forget to turn it on again later. This command is also available in the system tray during incremental analysis.
New diagnostic V602. Consider inspecting this expression. '<' possibly should be replaced with '<<'.
New diagnostic V603. The object was created but it is not being used. If you wish to call constructor, 'this->Foo::Foo(....)' should be used.
New diagnostic V807. Decreased performance. Consider creating a pointer/reference to avoid using the same expression repeatedly.
New article in documentation: "PVS-Studio menu commands".

PVS-Studio 4.53 (January 19, 2012)

New command for team work: "Add TODO comment for Task List". PVS-Studio allows you to automatically generate the special TODO comment containing all the information required to analyze the code fragment marked by it, and to insert it into the source code. Such comment will immediately appear inside the Visual Studio Task List window.
New diagnostic V599. The virtual destructor is not present, although the 'Foo' class contains virtual functions.
New diagnostic V600. Consider inspecting the condition. The 'Foo' pointer is always not equal to NULL.
New diagnostic V601. An odd implicit type casting.

PVS-Studio 4.52 (December 28, 2011)

Changes were introduced to the .sln-file independent analyzer command line mode. It is now possible to start the analysis in several processes simultaneously, the output file (--output-file) will not be lost. The entire command line of arguments including the filename should be passed into the cl-params argument: --cl-params $(CFLAGS) $**.
The "Analysis aborted by timeout" error was fixed, it could have been encountered while checking .sln file through PVS-Studio.exe command line mode.
New diagnostic V597. The compiler could delete the 'memset' function call, which is used to flush 'Foo' buffer. The RtlSecureZeroMemory() function should be used to erase the private data.
New diagnostic V598. The 'memset/memcpy' function is used to nullify/copy the fields of 'Foo' class. Virtual method table will be damaged by this.

PVS-Studio 4.51 (December 22, 2011)

The issue concerning the #import directive when using Clang preprocessor was fixed. #import is supported by Clang differently from Microsoft Visual C++, therefore it is impossible to use Clang with such files. This directive is now automatically detected, and Visual C++ preprocessor is used for these files.
'Don't Check Files' settings used for file and directory exclusions were significantly revised. As of now the folders to be excluded (either by their full and relative paths or my a mask) could be specified independently, as well as the files to be excluded (by their name, extension or a mask as well).
Some libraries were added to the default exclusion paths. This can be modified on the 'Don't Check Files' page.

PVS-Studio 4.50 (December 15, 2011)

An external preprocessor is being utilized to preprocess files with PVS-Studio. It is only Microsoft Visual C++ preprocessor that had been employed for this task in the past. But in 4.50 version of PVS-Studio the support for the Clang preprocessor had been added, as its performance is significantly higher and it lacks some of the Microsoft's preprocessor shortcomings (although it also possesses issues of its own). Still, the utilization of Clang preprocessor provides an increase of operational performance by 1.5-1.7 times in most cases. However there is an aspect that should be considered. The preprocessor to be used can be specified from within the PVS-Studio Options -> Common Analyzer Settings -> Preprocessor field. The available options are: VisualCPP, Clang and VisualCPPAfterClang. The first two of these are self evident. The third one indicates that Clang will be used at first, and if preprocessing errors are encountered, the same file will be preprocessed by the Visual C++ preprocessor instead. This option is a default one (VisualCPPAfterClang).
By default the analyzer will not produce diagnostic messages for libpng and zlib libraries (it is still possible to re-enable them).
New diagnostic V596. The object was created but it is not being used. The 'throw' keyword could be missing.

PVS-Studio 4.39 (November 25, 2011)

New diagnostics were implemented (V594, V595).
By default the analyzer will not produce diagnostic messages for Boost library (it is still possible to re-enable them).
Progress dialog will not be shown anymore during incremental analysis, an animated tray icon, which itself will allow pausing or aborting the analysis, will be used instead.
New "Don't Check Files and hide all messages from ..." command was added to the output window context menu. This command allows you to filter the messages and afterwards prevent the verification of files from the specified directories. The list of filtered directories can be reviewed in "Don't Check Files" options page.
The detection of Intel C++ Compiler integration have been revamped - PVS-Studio will not run on projects using this compiler, it is required to replace the compiler with Visual C++ one.
"Quick Filters" functionality was implemented. It allows filtering all the messages which do not meet the specified filtering settings.

PVS-Studio 4.38 (October 12, 2011)

Speed increase (up to 25% for quad core computers).
"Navigate to ID" command added to the context menu of PVS-Studio window.
New "Find in PVS-Studio Output" tool window allows searching of keywords in analysis results.
New diagnostic rules added (V2005).
Options button on PVS-Studio Output Window was renamed to Suppression and now contain only three tab pages.

PVS-Studio 4.37 (September 20, 2011)

New diagnostic rules added (V008, V2003, V2004).
Now you can export PVS-Studio analysis report to text file.
We use extended build number in some case.

PVS-Studio 4.36 (August 31, 2011)

New diagnostic rules added (V588, V589, V590, V591, V592, V593).
Changes in PVS-Studio menu.

PVS-Studio 4.35 (August 12, 2011)

New diagnostic rules added (V583, V584, V806, V585, V586, V587).

PVS-Studio 4.34 (July 29, 2011)

Now 64-bit analysis disabled by default.
Now Incremental Analysis enabled by default.
Changes of behavior in trial mode.
PVS_STUDIO predefined macro was added.
Fixed problem with Incremental Analysis on localized versions of Visual Studio.
Balloon notification and tray icon (after analysis finished) was added.
New diagnostic rules added (V582).
Changed image to display on the left side of the wizard in the Setup program.

PVS-Studio 4.33 (July 21, 2011)

Incremental Analysis feature now available for all versions of Microsoft Visual Studio (2005/2008/2010).
Speed increase (up to 20% for quad core computers).
New diagnostic rules added (V127, V579, V580, V581).

PVS-Studio 4.32 (July 15, 2011)

Changes in PVS-Studio's licensing policy.
Dynamic balancing of CPU usage.
Stop Analysis button work faster.

PVS-Studio 4.31 (July 6, 2011)

Fixed problem related to interaction with other extensions (including Visual Assist).
New diagnostic rules added (V577, V578, V805).

PVS-Studio 4.30 (June 23, 2011)

The full-fledged support for analyzer's operation through command line was implemented. It is possible to verify independent files or sets of files launching the analyzer from Makefile. Also the analyzer's messages can be viewed not only on screen (for each file), but they also can be saved into single file, which later can be opened in Visual Studio and the regular processing of the analysis' results can be performed, complete with setting up error codes, message filters, code navigation, sorting etc. Details.
New important mode of operation: Incremental Analysis. As of this moment PVS-Studio can automatically launch the analysis of modified files which are required to be rebuilt using 'Build' command in Visual Studio. All of developers in a team can now detect issues in newly written code without the inconvenience of manually launching the source code analysis - it happens automatically. Incremental Analysis operates similar to Visual Studio IntelliSence. The feature is available only in Visual Studio 2010. Details.
"Check Selected Item(s)" command was added.
Changes in starting "Check Solution" via command line. Details.
New diagnostic rules added (V576).

PVS-Studio 4.21 (May 20, 2011)

New diagnostic rules added (V220, V573, V574, V575).
TFS 2005/2008/2010 integration was added.

PVS-Studio 4.20 (April 29, 2011)

New diagnostic rules added (V571, V572).
Experimental support for ARMV4/ARMV4I platforms for Visual Studio 2005/2008 (Windows Mobile 5/6, PocketPC 2003, Smartphone 2003).
New "Show License Expired Message" option.

PVS-Studio 4.17 (April 15, 2011)

New diagnostic rules added (V007, V570, V804)
Incorrect display of analysis time in some locales has been fixed.
New "Analysis Timeout" option. This setting allows you to set the time limit, by reaching which the analysis of individual files will be aborted with V006 error, or to completely disable analysis termination by timeout.
New "Save File After False Alarm Mark" option. It allows to save or not to save a file each time after marking it as False Alarm.
New "Use Solution Folder As Initial" option. It defines the folder which is opened while saving the analysis results file.

PVS-Studio 4.16 (April 1, 2011)

It is possible now to define a list of files to be analyzed while launching the tool from command line. This can be used, for example, to check only the files which were updated by a revision control system. Details.
"Check only Files Modified In" option has been added into tool's settings. This option allows you to define the time interval in which the presence of modifications in analyzed files will be controlled using "Date Modified" file attribute. In other words, this approach would allow for verification of "all files modified today". Details.

PVS-Studio 4.15 (March 17, 2011)

There are much fewer false alarms in 64-bit analysis.
Changes in the interface of safe-type definition.
The error of processing stdafx.h in some special cases is fixed.
Handling of the report file was improved.
The progress dialogue was improved: you can see the elapsed time and the remaining time.

PVS-Studio 4.14 (March 2, 2011)

There are much fewer false alarms in 64-bit analysis.
New diagnostic rules were added (V566, V567, V568, V569, V803).
A new column "Asterisk" was added in the PVS-Studio message window - you may use it to mark interesting diagnoses with the asterisk to discuss them with your colleagues later. The marks are saved in the log file.
Now you may access PVS-Studio options not only from the menu (in the usual settings dialogue) but in the PVS-Studio window as well. This makes the process of setting the tool quicker and more convenient.
Now you may save and restore PVS-Studio settings. It enables you to transfer the settings between different computers and workplaces. We also added the "Default settings" command.
The state of PVS-Studio window's buttons (enabled/disabled) is saved when you launch Microsoft Visual Studio for the next time.

PVS-Studio 4.13 (February 11, 2011)

New diagnostic rules are added V563, V564, and V565).
The "Check for updates" command is added into the PVS-Studio menu.
The "Hide all VXXX errors" command is added into context menu in PVS-Studio window. If you wish to enable the display of VXXX error messages again you can do it through PVS-Studio->Options->Detectable errors page.
Suppressing false positives located within macro statements (#define) is added.

PVS-Studio 4.12 (February 7, 2011)

New diagnostic rules are added (V006, V204, V205, V559, V560, V561, and V562).
Changes in V201 and V202 diagnostic rules.

PVS-Studio 4.11 (January 28, 2011)

V401 rule changed to V802.
Fixed bug with copying messages to clipboard.

PVS-Studio 4.10 (January 17, 2011)

New diagnostic rules are added (V558).

PVS-Studio 4.00 (December 24, 2010)

New diagnostic rules are added (V546-V557).
The issue of processing property sheets in Visual Studio 2010 is fixed.
The error of traversing projects' tree is fixed.
The "Project" field is added into the PVS-Studio window - it shows the project the current diagnostic message refers to.
The issue of installing PVS-Studio for Visual Studio 2010 is fixed - now PVS-Studio is installed not only for the current user but for all the users.
The crash is fixed occurring when trying to save an empty report file.
The issue of absent safe_types.txt file is fixed.
The error is fixed which occurred when trying to check files included into the project but actually absent from the hard disk (for instance, autogenerated files).
Indication of processing the project's tree is added.
The file with PVS-Studio's analysis results (.plog extension) is now loaded by double-click.
The licensing policy is changed.

PVS-Studio 4.00 BETA (November 24, 2010)

A new set of general-purpose static analysis rules (V501-V545, V801).
New diagnostic rules are added (V124-V126).
Changes in the licensing policy.
A new window for diagnostic messages generated by the analyzer.
Speed increase.

PVS-Studio 3.64 (27 September 2010)

Major documentation update, new sections was added.

PVS-Studio 3.63 (10 September 2010)

Fixed bug which occurred sometimes during analysis of files located on non-system partitions.
Fixed bug in calculation of macros' values for certain individual files (and not the whole project).
"What Is It?" feature was removed.
Issues examples for 64-bit code (PortSample) and parallel code (ParallelSample) are merged into single OmniSample example, which is described particularly in documentation.
Fixed crash related to presence of unloaded project in Visual Studio solution.

PVS-Studio 3.62 (16 August 2010)

New rule V123: Allocation of memory by the pattern "(X*)malloc(sizeof(Y))"
The analysis of the code from command line (without Visual Studio project) is improved.
Diagnostic messages from tli/tlh files do not produced by default.

PVS-Studio 3.61 (22 July 2010)

Fixed crash in VS2010 with EnableAllWarnings key enabled in project settings.
Fixed bug related to analysis projects that does excluded from build in Configuration Manager.
The analysis of the code is considerably improved.

PVS-Studio 3.60 (10 June 2010)

New rule V122: Memsize type is used in the struct/class.
New rule V303: The function is deprecated in the Win64 system. It is safer to use the NewFOO function.
New rule V2001: Consider using the extended version of the FOO function here.
New rule V2002: Consider using the 'Ptr' version of the FOO function here.

PVS-Studio 3.53 (7 May 2010)

"What Is It?" feature is added. Now you can ask PVS-Studio developers about diagnistic messages produced by our analyzer.
The analysis of the code related to usage of unnamed structures is considerably improved.
Fixed bug in structure size evaluation in certain cases.

PVS-Studio 3.52 (27 April 2010)

New online help has been added. The previous help system integrated into MSDN. It was not very convenient for some reasons (both for us and users). Now PVS-Studio will open the help system on our site. We refused to integrate it into MSDN anymore. As before, the pdf-version
of the documentation is also available.
We stopped supporting Windows 2000.
The settings page "Exclude From Analysis" was deleted - there is now the page "Don't Check Files" instead.
Work in Visual Studio 2010 was improved.
We eliminated the issue of integration into VS2010 when reinstalling.
We fixed work of the function "Mark As False Alarm" with read-only files.

PVS-Studio 3.51 (16 April 2010)

PVS-Studio supports Visual Studio 2010 RTM.
New rule: V003: Unrecognized error found...
New rule: V121: Implicit conversion of the type of 'new' operator's argument to size_t type.
You may specify filemasks on the tab "Don't Check Files" to exclude some files from analysis.
"Exclude From Analysis" option page improved.
MoreThan2Gb option removed from "Viva64" option page (this option is deprecated).
If you want check code from command line then you must indicate analyzer type (Viva64 or VivaMP).
Priority of analyzer's process is reduced. Now you can work on computer more suitable while analysis is running.

PVS-Studio 3.50 (26 March 2010)

PVS-Studio supports Visual Studio 2010 RC. Although Visual Studio has not been released officially yet, we have already added the support for this environment into the analyzer. Now PVS-Studio integrates into Visual Studio 2010 and can analyze projects in this environment. Help system in Visual Studio 2010 has been changed, so the Help section of PVS-Studio does not integrate into the documentation yet as it is done in Visual Studio 2005/2008. But you still may use online-Help. Support of Visual Studio 2010 RC is not complete.
A new PDF-version of Help system is available. Now we ship a 50-page PDF-document in the PVS-Studio distribution kit. It is a full copy of our Help system (that integrates into MSDN in Visual Studio 2005/2008 and is available online).
PVS-Studio now has a new mechanism that automatically checks for new versions of the tool on our site. Checking for the updates is managed through the new option CheckForNewVersions in the settings tab called "Common Analyzer Settings". If the option CheckForNewVersions is set to True, a special text file is downloaded from www.viva64.com site when you launch code testing (the commands Check Current File, Check Current Project, Check Solution in PVS-Studio menu). This file contains the number of the latest PVS-Studio version available on the site. If the version on the site is newer than the version installed on the user computer, the user will be asked for a permission to update the tool. If the user agrees, a special separate application PVS-Studio-Updater will be launched that will automatically download and install the new PVS-Studio distribution kit. If the option CheckForNewVersions is set to False, it will not check for the updates.
We have implemented the support for the standard C++0x at the level it was done in Visual Studio 2010. Now it supports lambda expressions, auto, decltype, static_assert, nullptr, etc. In the future, as C++0x support in Visual C++ is developing, the analyzer PVS-Studio will also provide support for the new C++ language capabilities.
Now you can check solutions with PVS-Studio from the command line instead of Visual Studio environment. Note that we still mean that the checking will be performed from Visual Studio involving the files of projects (.vcproj) and solutions (.sln) but it will be launched from the command line instead of IDE. This way of launching the tool may be useful when you need to regularly check the code with the help of build systems or continuous integration systems.
New rule V1212: Data race risk. When accessing the array 'foo' in a parallel loop, different indexes are used for writing and reading.
We added a code signature certificate in the new version of our tool. It is done for you to be sure that the distribution kit is authentic, and get fewer warnings from the operating system when installing the application.

PVS-Studio 3.44 (21 January 2010)

Partial support of code testing for Itanium processors. Now the code that builds in Visual Studio Team System for Itanium processors may be also tested with the analyzer. Analysis can be performed on x86 and x64 systems but analysis on Itanium is not implemented yet.
We reduced the number of the analyzer's false alarms when analyzing an array access. Now, in some cases, the analyzer "understands" the ranges of values in the for loop and does not generate unnecessary warnings on accessing arrays with these indexes. For example: for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) arr[i] = foo(); // no warning from the analyzer.
The number of the analyzer's false alarms is reduced - we introduced a list of data types that do not form large arrays. For example, HWND, CButton. Users may compose their own type lists.
The installer error is corrected that occurs when installing the program into a folder different than the folder by default.

PVS-Studio 3.43 (28 December 2009)

Option ShowAllErrorsInString removed (now it always has the value true).
New rule V120: Member operator[] of object 'foo' declared with 32-bit type argument, but called with memsize type argument.
New rule V302: Member operator[] of 'foo' class has a 32-bit type argument. Use memsize-type here.
Operator[] analysis enhanced.
Error of long removal of the program in case of recurrent installation "over the program again" corrected.
Fixed problem related to analysis files with "^" character in filename.

PVS-Studio 3.42 (9 December 2009)

Errors diagnostics with magic numbers enhanced. Now in a message about a problem, more information is given out; this allows to use filters in a more flexible way.
Error during work with precompiled header files of special type corrected.
Option DoTemplateInstantiate is now turned on by default.
Error with preprocessor hang-up at large number of preprocessor messages corrected.
Analysis of operator[] enhanced.

PVS-Studio 3.41 (30 November 2009)

Error of same name files analysis during work on a multicore machine corrected.
Error of incorrect diagnostics of some types of cast-expressions corrected.
Parsing of overloaded functions in the analyzer improved considerably.
Diagnostics of incorrect use of time_t type added.
Processing of special parameters in the settings of Visual C++ project files added.

PVS-Studio 3.40 (23 November 2009)

A new feature "Mark as False Alarm" has been added. Due to it, it is now possible to mark those lines in the source code in which false alarm of the code analyzer happens. After such marking, the analyzer will not output any diagnostic messages for such code any more. This allows to use the analyzer constantly and more conveniently in the process of software development for new code verification.
Project Property Sheets support added, a procedure of easy-to-use Visual Studio projects setup.
During the verification of parallel programs, the analyzer can walk the code twice, this will allow to collect more information and carry out more precise diagnostics of some errors.

PVS-Studio 3.30 (25 September 2009)

In PVS-Studio, the possibility of testing 32-bit projects for estimating the complexity and cost of code migration to 64-bit systems has been added.
A new rule for 64-bit code analysis has been added, V118: malloc() function accepts a dangerous expression in the capacity of an argument.
A new rule for 64-bit code analysis has been added, V119: More than one sizeof() operators are used in one expression.
A new rule for parallel code analysis has been added, V1211: The use of 'flush' directive has no sense for private '%1%' variable, and can reduce performance.
Combined operation with Intel C++ Compiler has been improved (crash at the attempt of code verification with installed Intel C++ Compiler has been corrected.)
Localized versions of Visual Studio support has been enhanced.

PVS-Studio 3.20 (7 September 2009)

The error of incorrect output of some messages in Visual Studio localized versions has been corrected.
Log-file loading improved.
Critical errors processing improved - now it is easy to inform us on possible tools problems.
Installer operation improved.
Project files walking error corrected.

PVS-Studio 3.10 (10 August 2009)

Templates instantiating support has been added. Now the search of potential errors is carried out not simply by template body (as it was earlier), but also template parameters substitution is made for more thorough diagnostics.
The code analyzer can work in the mode of Linux environment simulation. We have added the support of various data models. That is why, now it is possible to verify cross platform programs on a Windows system the way it would be carried out on a Linux system.
The error connected with incorrect functioning of the analyzer of parallel errors in 32-bit environment has been corrected.
The work of the analyzer with templates has been considerably improved.

PVS-Studio 3.00 (27 July 2009)

Software products Viva64 and VivaMP are united into one program complex PVS-Studio.
The new version is a significantly upgraded software product.
Operation of the unit of integration into Visual Studio is much more stable.
Operation rate in multi-processor systems is increased: analysis is performed in several threads, and the number of the analyzer's operating threads can be set with the help of "Thread Count" option. By default the number of threads corresponds to the number of cores in the processor but it can be reduced.
A possibility to operate the analyzer from the command line is added. A new option "Remove Intermediate Files" is added into the settings of the program which allows you not to remove command files created during the code analyzer's operation. These command files can be launched separately without launching Visual Studio to perform analysis. Besides, when creating new command files you can perform by analogy analysis of the whole project without using Visual Studio.
It became more simple, convenient and quick to operate diagnosis of separate errors. Now you can enable and disable the function of showing separate errors in the analysis' results. What is the most important is that changing of the message list is performed automatically without the necessity of relaunching analysis. Having performed analysis you can scroll through the list of errors or simply disable showing of those errors which are not relevant to you project.
Operating with error filters has been improved greatly. Filters for hiding some messages are now defined simply as a list of strings. Like in case of diagnosing separate errors, using filters doesn't demand relaunching analysis.
Change of licensing policy. Although PVS-Studio is a single product, we provide licensing both for separate analysis units such as Viva64 and VivaMP and for all the units together. Besides, there are licenses for one user or for a team of developers. All these changes are reflected in registration keys.
Support of localized versions of Visual Studio has been improved greatly.
Help system for a new version of PVS-Studio integrating into MSDN has been modified and improved greatly. Description of new sections allows you to master operation with the software product better.
Graphic design of the software product has been improved. New icons and graphics in the installer make the analyzer's appearance more beautiful.

VivaMP 1.10 (20 April 2009)

The analysis of the code containing calls of the class static functions has been improved.
New diagnostic rules for the analysis of errors connected with the exceptions V1301, V1302, V1303 have been implemented.
The error of the incorrect display of the analysis progress indicator on machines with non-standard DPI has been corrected.
Some other enhancements have been implemented.

VivaMP 1.00 (10 March 2009)

VivaMP 1.00 release.

VivaMP 1.00 beta (27 November 2008)

First public beta version release on the Internet.

Viva64 2.30 (20 April 2009)

New diagnostic rule V401 has been implemented.
Constants processing has been improved, in a number of cases, this reduces the quantity of false diagnostic warnings.
The error of the incorrect display of the analysis progress indicator on machines with non-standard DPI has been corrected.
A number of errors have been corrected.

Viva64 2.22 (10 Mach 2009)

Collaboration of Viva64 and VivaMP is improved.
Analyzer performance is improved up to 10%.

Viva64 2.21 (27 November 2008)

Collaboration of Viva64 and VivaMP is added.

Viva64 2.20 (15 October 2008)

Diagnosis of potentially unsafe constructions is improved. As the result the number of the code analyzer's "false alarms" is reduced approximately by 20%. Now the developer will spend less time to analyze the code diagnosed as potentially unsafe.
Help system is amended. It has been extended and new examples have been added. As diagnosis of potentially unsafe constructions is improved in this version Help system has been also supplemented with explanations concerning the constructions which are now considered safe.
The speed of a project's structure analysis is raised. Now the same work is performed 10 times quicker. As the result the total time of the whole project's analysis is reduced.
C++ template analysis is improved. It's not a secret that far not all the code analyzers understand templates. We're constantly working to improve diagnosis of potentially unsafe constructions in templates. Such an improvement is made in this version.
Format of some code analyzer's messages is amended to make it possible to set filters more accurately. Thus now, for example, the analyzer doesn't only inform about an incorrect index type while accessing an array but also shows the name of the array itself. If the developer is sure that such an array cannot cause problems in 64-bit mode at all he can filter all the messages concerning this array's name.

Viva64 2.10 (05 September 2008)

Visual C++ 2008 Service Pack 1 support is added.

Viva64 2.0 (09 July 2008)

Visual C++ 2008 Feature Pack (and TR1) support is added.
Pedantic mode is added which allows you to find constructions potentially dangerous but rarely causing errors.
Diagnosis of template functions is improved

Viva64 1.80 (03 February 2008)

Visual Studio 2008 is fully supported now.
Source code analysis speed is increased.
Installer is improved. Now you can install Viva64 without administrator privileges for personal usage.

Viva64 1.70 (20 December 2007)

The support of a new diagnostic message (V117) is added. Memsize type used in union.
Fixed critical bug related to detection of more than one errors in source line.
Fixed bug in type evaluation in some complex syntax.
User Interface is improved. Now you can see a common analysis progress indicator.
Visual Studio 2008 support is added (BETA).

Viva64 1.60 (28 August 2007)

The support of a new diagnostic message (V112) is added. Dangerous magic number used.
The support of a new diagnostic message (V115) is added. Memsize type used for throw.
The support of a new diagnostic message (V116) is added. Memsize type used for catch.
The restriction of a trial version is changed. In each analyzed file the location of only some errors is shown.

Viva64 1.50 (15 May 2007)

C source analysis is fully supported. Now C source code may be analyzed correctly.

Viva64 1.40 (1 May 2007)

Message Suppression feature added. You can adjust filters on the Message Suppression page of the Viva64 settings to ignore some of the warning messages. For example, you can adjust filters to skip messages with particular error codes and messages including names of specific variables and functions.
Ability to save/load analysis results added.
Analysis results representation improved. The results are now displayed in the Visual Studio standard Error List window, just like the compiler messages.

Viva64 1.30 (17 March 2007)

Representation of the process of the code analysis is improved. Unnecessary windows switching are removed, a general progress bar is created.
Toolbar with Viva64 commands is added.
The user now can point the analyzer if its program is using more than 2GB of RAM. On using less than 2GB some warning messages are disabled.
The support of a new diagnostic message (V113) is added. Implicit type conversion from memsize to double type or vice versa.
The support of a new diagnostic message (V114) is added. Dangerous explicit type pointer conversion.
The support of a new diagnostic message (V203) is added. Explicit type conversion from memsize to double type or vice versa.

Viva64 1.20 (26 January 2007)

Filtration of repeating error messages is added. It is useful when there are errors in header files. Earlier if *.h file with an error included into different *.cpp files the warning message about the error in the *.h file was shown several times. Now there is only one message about in the *.h file shown.
Now Viva64 informs about the number of errors found after the code analysis. You can always see:
- how much code is left to be checked;
- how many errors are corrected already;
- which modules contain the largest number of errors.
Support of some hot keys is added. Now you can interrupt the analyzer's work with the help of Ctrl+Break. In case you want to check the current file just press Ctrl+Shift+F7.
There are some errors of the analyzer's work corrected.

Viva64 1.10 (16 January 2007)

With the help of the Viva64 analyzer itself we've prepared the 64-bit version of Viva64 at once! But you should not care about the choose of the right version during the installation. The installer will find out itself which version should be installed for your operation system.
The support of a new rule is added. Now the parameters of the functions with the variable number of arguments are checked (V111-error code).
There is no unnecessary diagnosis of the address to the array item with the help of enum values.
There is no unnecessary diagnosis of the constructions of type int a = sizeof(int).
The Help System is improved.

Viva64 1.00 (31 December 2006)

First public release on the Internet.

How to Run PVS-Studio Java

System Requirements
Plugin for Maven
Plugin for Gradle
Plugin for IntelliJ IDEA
Using analyzer core directly
Integration of PVS-Studio with Continuous Integration systems and SonarQube
Suppression of analyzer messages
Common problems and their solutions

PVS-Studio Java static code analyzer consists of 2 main parts: the analyzer core, which performs the analysis, and plugins for integration into build systems and IDEs.

Plugins extract project structure (a collection of source files and classpath), then pass this information to the analyzer core. In addition, plugins are responsible for deploying the core for analysis - it will be automatically installed during the first analysis run.

The analyzer has several different ways to integrate into a project.

System Requirements

Operating system: Windows, Linux, macOS;
Minimum required Java version to run the analyzer with: Java 8 (64-bit). Note: A project being analyzed could use any Java version;
Minimum required IntelliJ IDEA version: 2017.2 (optional)

Plugin for Maven

For projects with Maven build system, you can use the pvsstudio-maven-plugin. To do this, you need to add the following to the pom.xml file:

<pluginRepositories>
  <pluginRepository>
    <id>pvsstudio-maven-repo</id>
    <url>http://files.viva64.com/java/pvsstudio-maven-repository/</url>
  </pluginRepository>
</pluginRepositories>

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>com.pvsstudio</groupId>
      <artifactId>pvsstudio-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>7.11.44138</version>
      <configuration>
        <analyzer>
          <outputType>text</outputType>
          <outputFile>path/to/output.txt</outputFile>
        </analyzer>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

After that, you can run the analysis:

$ mvn pvsstudio:pvsAnalyze

In addition, the analysis can be included in a project build cycle by adding the execution element:

<plugin>
  <groupId>com.pvsstudio</groupId>
  <artifactId>pvsstudio-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>7.11.44138</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <phase>compile</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>pvsAnalyze</goal>
      </goals>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>

Entering license information

To enter the license information you can use the following command:

mvn pvsstudio:pvsCredentials "-Dpvsstudio.username=USR" "-Dpvsstudio.serial=KEY"

After that, the license information will be saved in %APPDATA%/PVS-Studio-Java/PVS-Studio.lic in Windows OS or in ~/.config/PVS-Studio-Java/PVS-Studio.lic in macOS and Linux.

Configuration

Analyzer configuration is performed in the <analyzer> section. A list of analyzer options is given below.

<outputFile>PATH</outputFile> - path to the file with the analyzer report. Default value: ${basedir}/PVS-Studio. Note: for a report in the 'fullhtml' format in outputFile it is necessary to specify a directory in which a folder will be created with the name 'fullhtml' containing the analyzer report. Default value: ${basedir}/fullhtml;
<outputType>TYPE</outputType> - analyzer report format (text, log, json, xml, tasklist, html, fullhtml, errorfile). Default value: json;
<threadsNum>NUMBER</threadsNum> - number of analysis threads. Default value: number of available processors;
<sourceTreeRoot>PATH</sourceTreeRoot> - root part of the path which the analyzer will use to generate relative paths in diagnostic messages. The value is absent by default;
<enabledWarnings>V6XXX, ....</enabledWarnings> - list of enabled analyzer rules. When enabled rules are specified here, all other rules are considered to be disabled. The value is absent by default. When this option is absent, all of the analyzer rules are considered to be enabled (unless the additional disabledWarnings option is specified);
<disabledWarnings>V6XXX, ....</disabledWarnings> - list of disabled analyzer rules. When disabled rules are specified here, all other rules are considered to be enabled. The value is absent by default. When this option is absent, all of the analyzer rules are considered to be enabled (unless the additional enabledWarnings option is specified);
<additionalWarnings>V6XXX, ....</additionalWarnings> - list of analyzer rules which are disabled by default but should be included in analysis. The value is absent by default;
<exclude>PATH, ....</exclude> - list of files and/or directories which have to be excluded from the analysis (absolute or relative paths). The value is absent by default. When this option is absent, all files will be analyzed (unless the additional analyzeOnly option is specified);
<analyzeOnly>PATH, ....</analyzeOnly> - list of files and/or directories which have to be analyzed (absolute or relative paths). The value is absent by default. When this option is absent, all files will be analyzed (unless the additional exclude option is specified);
<suppressBase>PATH</suppressBase> - path to a suppress file, containing suppressed analyzer messages, that will not be included in analyzer's report. You can add analyzer messages to a suppress file from the interface of PVS-Studio IDE plug-in for IntelliJ IDEA Default value: ${basedir}/.PVS-Studio/suppress_base.json;
<failOnWarnings>BOOLEAN</failOnWarnings> - flag that allows you to end a task with a failure, if the analyzer generates a warning. Default value: false;
<incremental>BOOLEAN</incremental> - enable incremental analysis (analysis will be performed for the modified files only). Default value: false;
<forceRebuild>BOOLEAN</forceRebuild> - flag that allows to forcibly rebuild the entire cached program metamodel containing information about its structure and type information. Default value: false;
<disableCache>BOOLEAN</disableCache> - flag that allows to disable cashing of the program metamodel. Default value: false;
<timeout>NUMBER</timeout> - timeout for analyzing a single file (in minutes). Default value: 10;
<verbose>BOOLEAN</verbose> - flag that allows saving temporary analyzer files for its diagnostic. Default value: false;
<javaPath>PATH</javaPath> - path to the java interpreter, which will run the analyzer core. Default value: java from the PATH environment variable;
<jvmArguments>FLAG, ....</jvmArguments> - additional JVM flags with which the analyzer core will be executed. Default value: -Xss64m;
<compatibility>BOOLEAN</compatibility> - flag that allows you to activate the V6078 diagnostic rule that detects potential API compatibility issues between selected Java SE versions;
<sourceJava>NUMBER</sourceJava> - Java SE version that your application is developed on;
<targetJava>NUMBER</targetJava> - Java SE version that has to be checked for compatibility with the API used in your application (sourceJava);
<excludePackages>"PACK", ....</excludePackages> - packages that you want to exclude from compatibility analysis.

Configuration via the command line

In addition to configuring the <analyzer > block, in pom.xml you can define the analyzer settings via the command line. Definition format:

-Ppvsstudio.<nameSingleParam>=value 
-Ppvsstudio.<nameMultipleParam>=value1;value2;value3

Example:

mvn pvsstudio:pvsAnalyze -Ppvsstudio.outputType=text
-Ppvsstudio.outputFile=path/to/output.txt
-Ppvsstudio.disabledWarnings=V6001;V6002;V6003

Important! When defining parameters via the command line, keep in mind that the parameters explicitly specified in the command line when running the analysis take precedence over the parameters specified when configuring the <analyzer > block in pom.xml.

Plugin for Gradle

For projects with the Gradle build system, you can use the pvsstudio-gradle-plugin plugin. To do this, you need to add the following to the build.gradle file:

buildscript {
  repositories {
    mavenCentral()
    maven {
      url uri('http://files.viva64.com/java/pvsstudio-maven-repository/')
    }
  }
  dependencies {
    classpath group: 'com.pvsstudio',
              name: 'pvsstudio-gradle-plugin',
              version: '7.11.44138'
  }
}

apply plugin: com.pvsstudio.PvsStudioGradlePlugin
pvsstudio {
  outputType = 'text'
  outputFile = 'path/to/output.txt'
}

After that, you can run the analysis:

$ ./gradlew pvsAnalyze

Entering license information

To enter the license information you can use the following command:

./gradlew pvsCredentials "-Ppvsstudio.username=USR" "-Ppvsstudio.serial=KEY"

After that, the license information will be saved in % APPDATA%/PVS-Studio-Java/PVS-Studio.lic in Windows OS or in ~/.config/PVS-Studio-Java/PVS-Studio.lic in macOS and Linux.

Configuration

The analyzer configuration is performed in the section "pvsstudio". A list of analyzer configurations is given below.

outputFile = "PATH" - path to the file with the analyzer report. Default value: $projectDir/PVS-Studio. Note: for a report in the 'fullhtml' format in outputFile it is necessary to specify a directory in which a folder will be created with the name 'fullhtml' containing the analyzer report. Default value: ${projectDir}/fullhtml;
outputType = "TYPE" - format of the analyzer report (text, log, json, xml, tasklist, html, fullhtml, errorfile). Default value: json;
threadsNum = NUMBER - number of analysis threads. The default value: number of available processors;
sourceTreeRoot = "PATH" – root part of the path that the analyzer will use to generate relative paths in diagnostic messages. The value is absent by default;
enabledWarnings = ["V6XXX", ....] – list of enabled analyzer rules. When enabled rules are specified here, all other rules are considered to be disabled. The value is absent by default. When this option is absent, all of the analyzer rules are considered to be enabled (unless the additional disabledWarnings option is specified);
disabledWarnings = ["V6XXX", ....] – list of disabled analyzer rules. When disabled rules are specified here, all other rules are considered to be enabled. The value is absent by default. When this option is absent, all of the analyzer rules are considered to be enabled (unless the additional enabledWarnings option is specified);
additionalWarnings = ["V6XXX", ....] – list of analyzer rules which are disabled by default but should be included in analysis. The value is absent by default;
exclude = ["PATH", ....] – list of files and/or directories which have to be excluded from the analysis (absolute or relative paths). The value is absent by default. When this option is absent, all files will be analyzed (unless the additional analyzeOnly option is specified);
analyzeOnly = ["PATH", ....] – list of files and/or directories which have to be analyzed (absolute or relative paths). The value is absent by default. When this option is absent, all files will be analyzed (unless the additional exclude option is specified);
suppressBase = "PATH" - path to a suppress file, containing suppressed analyzer messages, that will not be included in analyzer's report. You can add analyzer messages to a suppress file from the interface of PVS-Studio IDE plug-in for IntelliJ IDEA Default value: $projectDir/.PVS-Studio/suppress_base.json;
failOnWarnings = BOOLEAN - flag that allows you to end a pvsAnalyze task with a failure, if the analyzer issued a certain warning. Default value: false;
incremental = BOOLEAN - enable incremental analysis (analysis will be performed for the modified files only). Default value: false;
forceRebuild = BOOLEAN - flag that allows to forcibly rebuild the entire cached program metamodel containing information about its structure and type information. Default value: false;
disableCache = BOOLEAN - flag that allows to disable cashing of the program metamodel. Default value: false;
timeout = NUMBER - timeout of one file analysis (in minutes). Default value: 10;
verbose = BOOLEAN – flag that allows saving temporary analyzer files for its diagnostic. Default value: false;
javaPath = "PATH" - path to the java interpreter, which will run the analyzer core. Default value: java from the PATH environment variable;
jvmArguments = ["FLAG", ....] - additional JVM flags with which the analyzer core will be executed. Default value: ["-Xss64m"];
compatibility = BOOLEAN - flag that allows you to activate the V6078 diagnostic rule that detects potential API compatibility issues between selected Java SE versions;
sourceJava = NUMBER - Java SE version that your application is developed on;
targetJava = NUMBER - Java SE version that has to be checked for compatibility with the API used in your application (sourceJava);
excludePackages = ["PACK", ....] - packages that you want to exclude from compatibility analysis.

Configuration via the command line

In addition to configuring the 'pvsstudio' block, in build.gradle, you can define the analyzer settings via the command line. Definition format:

-Dpvsstudio.<nameSingleParam>=value 
-Dpvsstudio.<nameMultipleParam>=value1;value2;value3

Example:

./gradlew pvsAnalyze -Dpvsstudio.outputType=text
-Dpvsstudio.outputFile=path/to/output.txt
-Dpvsstudio.disabledWarnings=V6001;V6002;V6003

Plugin for IntelliJ IDEA

The PVS-Studio Java analyzer can be also used as a plugin for IntelliJ IDEA. In this case, parsing of a project structure is performed by means of this IDE and the plugin provides a convenient graphic interface to work with the analyzer.

PVS-Studio plug-in for IDEA can be installed either from the official JetBrains plug-in repository, or from a repository on our site. Another way of the plugin and the analyzer core installation is the PVS-Studio installer for Windows. It is available on the download page.

The following instructions describe how to install the plugin from our repository.

1) File -> Settings -> Plugins

2) Manage Plugin Repositories

3) Add repository (http://files.viva64.com/java/pvsstudio-idea-plugins/updatePlugins.xml)

4) Install

Then you should enter license information.

1) Analyze -> PVS-Studio -> Settings

2) Registration tab

And finally, you can run the analysis of a current project:

Using analyzer core directly

If none of the above methods of integration into a project is appropriate, you can use the analyzer core directly. You can download the analyzer core by the link (http://files.viva64.com/java/pvsstudio-cores/7.11.44138.zip) or using the PVS-Studio installer for Windows which is available on the download page.

If you install the analyzer via the PVS-Studio installer for Windows, the core will be downloaded to %APPDATA%/PVS-Studio-Java/7.11.44138.

To get information about all available arguments of the analyzer, you must run the command '--help':

java -jar pvs-studio.jar --help

Let's look at the main arguments of the analyzer:

--src (-s) - set of *.java files or directories for analysis. If you need to list multiple files/directories, use ' ' as the separator. Example: --src "path/to/file1" "path/to/file2" "path/to/dir";
--ext (-e) - definition of classpath (.jar/.class files, directories). If you need to list multiple classpath entities, use ' ' as the separator. Example: --ext "path/to/file.jar" "path/to/dirJars";
--ext-file - path to the file with classpath. pathSeparator is used as a classpath separator (separator ':' - in Unix systems and ';' -in Windows);
--output-file (-o) - path to the file where the analysis results will be written. Default value: {currentDir}/PVS-Studio.json. Note: to get a report in the 'fullhtml' format in outputFile, specify the directory where the directory named 'fullhtml' with the analyzer report will be created. Default value: {currentDir}/fullhtml;
--output-type (-O) - output format (text, log, json, xml, tasklist, html, fullhtml, errorfile);
--incremental (-i) - analysis of only modified files;
--threads (-j) - number of analysis threads. Default value: number of available processors;
--cfg (-c) - configuration file for running the core.
--help (-h) – printing help information to the screen.
--sourcetree-root - root part of the path that the analyzer will use to generate relative paths in diagnostic messages. There's no default value;
--force-rebuild - flag that allows you to forcibly rebuild the entire cached metamodel of the program containing information about its structure and data types;
--disable-cache - flag that allows you to disable caching of the program's metamodel;
--exclude - the list of files and/or directories which have to be excluded from the analysis (absolute or relative paths). If you need to list multiple files/directories, use ' ' as the separator. Example: --exclude "path/to/file1" "path/to/file2" "path/to/dir";
--include - list of files and/or directories which have to be analyzed (absolute or relative paths). If you need to list multiple files/directories, use ' ' as the separator. Example: --include "path/to/file1" "path/to/file2" "path/to/dir";
--disable-warnings - list of disabled diagnostics. When setting disabled diagnostics, those not specified here will be considered enabled. If you need to list several rules, use ' ' as the separator. Example: --disable-warnings V6001 V6002 V6003;
--enable-warnings - list of active diagnostics. When setting enabled diagnostics, those not specified here will be disabled. If you need to list several rules, use ' ' as the separator. Example: --enable-warnings V6001 V6002 V6003;
--additional-warnings - list of analyzer rules which are disabled by default but should be included in analysis. If you need to list several rules, use ' ' as the separator. Example: --additional-warnings V6001 V6002 V6003;
--suppress-base - path to the suppress file containing suppressed analyzer messages that will not be issued in the analysis report;
--timeout - timeout of one file analysis (in minutes). Default value:10;
--username - user's name;
serial-number - license serial number;
license-path - path to the license file. Note: if 'username 'and' serial-number ' are empty, the analyzer will check the license information in %APPDATA%/PVS-Studio-Java/PVS-Studio.lic in OS Windows or in ~/.config/PVS-Studio-Java/PVS-Studio.lic in macOS and Linux.
--compatibility - flag that enables the V6078 diagnostic rule that detects potential API compatibility issues between selected Java SE versions;
--source-java - Java SE version that your application is developed on;
--target-java - Java SE version that has to be checked for compatibility with the API used in your application (--source-java);
--exclude-packages - packages that you want to exclude from compatibility analysis. If you need to list multiple packages, use ' ' as the separator. Example: --exclude-packages "package1" "package2" "package3";
--fail-on-warnings - flag that allows you to return non-null code if the analyzer has issued a warning;
--convert - running in conversion mode. Modes: 'toFullhtml' converts a report with warnings to the 'fullhtml' format, 'toSuppress' converts a report with warnings to the suppression file format;
--src-convert - path to the analyzer report with warnings (*. json);
--dst-convert - conversion destination (file for 'toSuppress', directory for 'toFullhtml');

The analyzer requires a collection of source files (or directories with source files) for analysis, and classpath information in order to build the program metamodel correctly.

Examples of quick launch:

java -jar pvs-studio.jar -s A.java B.java C.java -e Lib1.jar Lib2.jar -j4 
-o report.txt -O text -username name someName –serial-number someSerial

java -jar pvs-studio.jar -s src/main/java --ext-file classpath.txt -j4 
-o report.txt -O text --license-path PVS-Studio.lic

To avoid writing all the necessary parameters in the command line every time, you can use the '--cfg' parameter. To do this, create a file with the following contents:

{
  "src": ["A.java", "B.java", "C.java"],
  "threads": 4,
  "output-file": "report.txt",
  "output-type": "text",
  "username": "someName",
  "serial-number": "someSerial"
  ....
}

{
  "src": ["src/main/java"],
  "threads": 4,
  "ext-file": "classpath.txt", 
  "output-file": "report.txt",
  "output-type": "text",
  "license-path": "PVS-Studio.lic"
  ....
}

In this case, running the analyzer will narrow down to the following line:

java -jar pvs-studio.jar –-cfg cfg.json

Important! When you use the configuration file, keep in mind that arguments explicitly written in the command line, take precedence when running the analyzer.

Integration of PVS-Studio with Continuous Integration systems and SonarQube

Any of the following methods of integration of the analysis into a build system can be used for automated analysis in Continuous Integration systems. This can be performed in Jenkins, TeamCity and other CI systems by setting up automatic analysis launch and notification on the generated errors.

It is also possible to integrate PVS-Studio analyzer with the SonarQube continuous quality inspection system using the corresponding PVS-Studio plug-in. Installation instructions are available on this page: "Integration of PVS-Studio analysis results into SonarQube".

Suppression of analyzer messages

There are several ways to suppress analyzer messages.

1. Using special comments:

void f() {
    int x = 01000; //-V6061
}

2. Using a special suppression file

The special suppression 'suppress' file can be generated PVS-Studio IDE plug-in for InlelliJ IDEA. Path to suppress file can be specified as a parameter to maven or gradle analyzer plug-ins, or it can be passed to as a parameter to the direct call of analyzer core.

When suppressing messages through IDEA, suppress file will be generated in the '.PVS-Studio' directory, which itself is located in the directory of a project that is currently opened in the IDE. The name of the suppress file will be suppress_base.json;

3. Using @SuppressWarnings(....) annotations

Analyzer can recognize several annotations and is able to skip warnings for the code that was already marked by such annotations. For example:

@SuppressWarnings("OctalInteger")
void f() {
    int x = 01000;
}

Common problems and their solutions

"GC overhead limit exceeded" occurs or analysis aborts by timeout

The insufficient memory problem can be solved by increasing the available amount of memory and stack.

Plugin for Maven:

Plugin for Gradle:

jvmArguments = ["-Xmx4096m", "-Xss256m"]

Plugin for IntelliJ IDEA:

1) Analyze -> PVS-Studio -> Settings

2) Environment tab -> JVM arguments

Typically, the default amount of memory may be insufficient when analyzing some generated code with a large number of nested constructs.

It's probably better to exclude that code from analysis (using exclude), to speed it up.

How to change Java executable to run the analyzer with?

The analyzer runs core with java from the PATH environment variable by default. If you need to run the analysis with some other java, you can specify it manually.

Plugin for Maven:

<javaPath>C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.8.0_162/bin/java.exe</javaPath>

Plugin for Gradle:

javaPath = "C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.8.0_162/bin/java.exe"

Plugin for IntelliJ IDEA:

1) Analyze -> PVS-Studio -> Settings

2) Environment tab -> Java executable

Unable to start the analysis (V00X errors occur)

If you are unable to run the analysis, please email us (support@viva64.com) and attach text files from the .PVS-Studio directory (located in the project directory).

PVS-Studio for Embedded Development

Analysis of projects in Linux and macOS
Analysis of projects in Windows
Warnings with the V001 number
The used compiler is not in the list
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Project analysis with PlatformIO
Additional links

Development for embedded systems has its own specific characteristics and approaches, but control of code quality in this sphere is no less important than in the other ones. PVS-Studio supports the analysis of projects that use the following compilers:

Supported platforms for development are Windows, Linux and macOS.

Analysis of projects in Linux and macOS

After installing the analyzer in Linux or macOS, the pvs-studio-analyzer utility for projects analysis will become available.

Automatic definition of supported compilers is added in the utility. If a modified or advanced development package is used, you can list the names of the used embedded-compilers with the help of the --compiler parameter.

-C [COMPILER_NAME...], --compiler [COMPILER_NAME...]
    Filter compiler commands by compiler name

Analysis of projects in Windows

After installing the analyzer, a large set of different utilities meant for various analyzer working modes, will be available.

Console mode

The project analysis can be automated using successive runs of the following commands of the CLMonitor utility:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\CLMonitor.exe" monitor
<build command for your project>
"C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\CLMonitor.exe" analyze ... -l report.plog ...

Note. The command runs the process in a nonblocking mode.

Graphic mode

In the Compiler Monitoring UI utility, you need to change the mode to the build monitoring in the menu Tools > Analyze Your Files (C/C++) or by clicking the "eye" on the toolbar:

Before running the build monitoring, the following menu for additional analysis configuration will be available:

After running the monitoring, a project build is to be performed in an IDE or with the help of build scripts. Once the build is complete, click Stop Monitoring in the following window:

The analysis results will be available in the Compiler Monitoring UI utility after the analysis of files in the compilation.

Warnings with the V001 number

In the analyzer report, such warnings might be encountered:

V001: A code fragment from 'source.cpp' cannot be analyzed.

Developers of compilers for embedded systems often diverge of standards and add non-standard extensions in the compiler. In the sphere of microcontrollers it is particularly prevalent and is not something unusual for developers.

However, for a code analyzer it represents non-standard C or C++ code, which requires additional support. If such warnings come up for your code, send us, please, the archive with the preprocessed *.i files received from the problematic source files and we'll add support of new compiler extensions.

You can enable the mode of saving such files while analyzing in the following way:

In the Compiler Monitoring UI utility in the menu Tools > Options... > Common Analyzer Settings > RemoveIntermediateFiles set the false value;
Pass the --verbose parameter to the utility pvs-studio-analyzer.

The used compiler is not in the list

The market of development packages for embedded systems is very wide, so if you haven't found your compiler in the list of supported ones, please, report us about your desire to try PVS-Studio via the feedback form and describe in detail the used development tools.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

To improve the quality of code or security of devices in the sphere of development for embedded systems, some people often follow different coding standards, such as SEI CERT Coding Standard and MISRA and also try to avoid the emergence of potential vulnerabilities, guided by a list of the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE). PVS-Studio checks code compliance to such criteria.

Project analysis with PlatformIO

To analyze a project for embedded system with PVS-Studio, you can also use PlatformIO cross-platform IDE. It can manage build toolchains, debuggers and library dependencies, and is available under many mainstream operating systems, such as Windows, macOS and Linux.

To enable PVS-Studio analysis, you should add the following in configuration file (platformio.ini):

check_tool = pvs-studio
check_flags = pvs-studio: --analysis-mode=4

Then use this command in the terminal:

pio check

More details about PlatformIO static analysis support are available on its project page, as well as on PVS-Studio analyzer configuration page.

Additional links

This document includes peculiarities of launching the analyzer and checking of projects for embedded systems. As for the rest, the analyzer launch and its configuration are made the same as for other types of projects. Before using the analyzer we recommend checking out the following documentation pages:

Getting acquainted with the PVS-Studio static code analyzer on Windows

Pros of using a static analyzer
A brief overview PVS-Studio's capabilities
System requirements and installation of PVS-Studio
The basics of using PVS-Studio
Work with a list of diagnostic messages
Is it necessary to fix all the potential errors the analyzer informs about?

PVS-Studio is a static analyzer for C, C++, C# and Java code designed to assist programmers in searching for and fixing a number of software errors of different patterns. The analyzer can be used in Windows, Linux and macOS.

Working under Windows, the analyzer integrates into Visual Studio as a plugin, providing a convenient user interface for easy code navigation and error search. There is also a C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI (Standalone.exe) available which is used independently of Visual Studio and allows analyzing files compiled with, besides Visual C++, such compilers as GCC (MinGW) and Clang. Command line utility PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe will allow to perform analysis of MSBuild / Visual Studio projects without a run of IDE or Compiler Monitoring UI, that will let, for instance, use the analyzer as a part of CI process.

PVS-Studio for Linux is a console application.

This document describes the basics of using PVS-Studio on Windows. To get information about working in Linux environment refer to articles "Installing and updating PVS-Studio on Linux" and "How to run PVS-Studio on Linux and macOS".

Pros of using a static analyzer

A static analyzer does not substitute other bug searching tools - it just complements them. Integrating a static analysis tool with the development process helps to eliminate plenty of errors at the moment when they are only "born", thus saving your time and resources on their subsequent elimination. As everyone knows, the earlier a bug is found, the easier it is to fix it. What follows from this is the idea that a static analyzer should be used regularly, for it is the only best way to get most of it.

A brief overview PVS-Studio's capabilities

Warning levels and diagnostic rule sets

PVS-Studio divides all the warnings into 3 levels of certainty: High, Medium and Low. Some warnings refer to a special Fails category. Let's consider these levels in more detail:

High(1) - warnings with the maximum level of certainty. Such warnings often indicate errors, requiring immediate correction.
Medium(2) - errors with lower degree of certainty, which are still worth paying attention to.
Low(3) - warnings with a minimum level of certainty, pointing to minor flaws in the code. Warnings of this level usually have a high percentage of false positives.
Fails - internal warnings of the analyzer informing of some problems during the work. These are warnings of the analyzer errors (for example, messages V001, V003 ans so on) and any unprocessed output of utilities, used by the analyzer itself during the analysis (a preprocessor, a command preprocessor cmd), displayed in stdout/stderr. For example, Fails messages can be the message of a preprocessor about preprocessing errors of the source code, errors of access to files (a file doesn't exist, or it is blocked by an anti-virus) and so on.

It should be borne in mind that a certain code of the error does not necessarily bind it to a particular level of certainty, and the distribution across the levels highly depends on the context, where they were generated. The output window of diagnostic messages in the plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio and the Compiler Monitoring UI has buttons of the levels, allowing to sort the warnings as needed.

The analyzer has 5 types of diagnostic rules:

General (GA) - General Analysis diagnostics. This is the main set of diagnostic rules in PVS-Studio.
Optimization (OP) - Diagnostics of micro-optimization. These are tips concerning the improvement of efficiency and safety of the code.
64-bit (64) - diagnostics, allowing to detect specific errors, related to the development of 64-bit applications and migrating the code from a 32-bit platform to a 64-bit one.
Customers' Specific (CS) - highly specialized diagnostics, developed by user requests. By default, this set of diagnostics is disabled.
MISRA - a set of diagnostics, developed according to the MISRA standard (Motor Industry Software Reliability Association). This set of diagnostics is disabled by default.

Short description of the diagnostic groups (GA, OP, 64, CS, MISRA) with the numbers of certainty levels (1, 2, 3) are used for the shorthand notation, for example in the command line parameters. Example: GA: 1,2.

Switching a certain group of diagnostics rules set shows or hides the corresponding messages.

You may find the detailed list of diagnostic rules in the corresponding section of the documentation.

Analyzer messages can be grouped and filtered by various criteria To get more detailed information about a work with a list of analyzer warnings, please, refer to the article " Handling the diagnostic messages list ".

PVS-Studio and Microsoft Visual Studio

When installing PVS-Studio, you can choose which versions of the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE the analyzer should integrate with.

After deciding on all the necessary options and completing the setup, PVS-Studio will integrate into the IDE's menu. In the figure, you can see that the corresponding command has appeared in Visual Studio's menu, as well as the message output window.

In the settings menu, you can customize PVS-Studio as you need to make it most convenient to work with. For example, it provides the following options:

Preprocessor selection;
Exclusion of files and folders from analysis;
Selection of the diagnostic message types to be displayed during the analysis;
Plenty of other settings.

Most likely, you won't need any of those at your first encounter with PVS-Studio, but later, they will help you optimize your work with the tool.

PVS-Studio and IntelliJ IDEA

When installing the analyzer, it is possible to integrate the PVS-Studio plugin into the IntelliJ IDEA, which allows performing the analysis and handling analyzer reports right from the IDE.

After the installation, the plugin will be available in the menu 'Analyze' ('Analyze' > 'PVS-Studio'). The screenshot of IntelliJ IDEA with integrated PVS-Studio plugin is given below.

In the settings menu, is possible the disable diagnostic rules, exclude files / directories from the analysis, etc.

The documentation section "How to Run PVS-Studio Java" describes operating features of the Java analyzer. It also provides alternative installation options, including installation of plugins for Maven, Gradle.

PVS-Studio and JetBrains Rider

When installing the analyzer, it is possible to integrate the PVS-Studio plugin into the JetBrains Rider, which allows performing the analysis and handling analyzer reports right from the IDE.

The plugin is available in the 'Tools' menu after its installation. Current solution / project analysis can be done the following way: 'Tools' > 'PVS-Studio' > 'Check Current Solution/Project'.

The screenshot of JetBrains Rider with integrated PVS-Studio plugin is given below.

You can learn more about PVS-Studio plugin for IDE JetBrains Rider in the following documentation section: "Using PVS-Studio with JetBrains Rider".

C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI (Standalone.exe)

PVS-Studio can be used independently of the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE. The Compiler Monitoring UI allows analyzing projects while building them. It also supports code navigation through clicking on the diagnostic messages, and search for code fragments and definitions of macros and data types. To learn more about how to work with the Compiler Monitoring UI, see the article "Viewing Analysis Results with C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI".

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe is a tool, which enables the analysis of Visual Studio solutions (.sln), as well as Visual C++ and Visual C# projects (.vcxproj, .csproj) from the command line. This can be useful, for example, in the case of a need to integrate static analysis on the build server. PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe allows to perform as a full analysis of the target project, and incremental (analysis of files that have changed since the last build). View of return code of the utility work as a bitmask enables you to get detailed information on the results of the analysis and identify the problems, in case of their occurrence. Thus, using the PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe utility you can configure a scenario of static code analysis 'subtly' enough and embed it into the CI process. Using of PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe module is described in more detail in the section "Analyzing Visual C++ (.vcxproj) and Visual C# (.csproj) projects from the command line".

Help system and technical support

PVS-Studio provides an extensive help system on its diagnostic messages. This message database is accessible both from PVS-Studio's interface and at the official site. The message descriptions are accompanied by code samples with error examples, the error description, and available fixing solutions.

To open a diagnostic description, just click with the left mouse button on the diagnostic number in the message output window. These numbers are implemented as hyperlinks.

Technical support for PVS-Studio is carried out via e-mail. Since our technical support is delivered by the tool developers themselves, our users can promptly get responses to a wide variety of questions.

System requirements and installation of PVS-Studio

PVS-Studio integrates into Microsoft Visual Studio 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2012, 2010 development environments. You may learn about the system requirements for the analyzer in the corresponding section of the documentation.

After you obtain the PVS-Studio installation package, you may start installing the program.

After approval of the license agreement, integration options will be presented for various supported versions of Microsoft Visual Studio. Integration options which are unavailable on a particular system will be greyed-out. In case different versions of the IDE or several IDEs are present on the system, it is possible to integrate the analyzer into every version available.

To make sure that the PVS-Studio tool was correctly installed, you may open the About window (Help/About menu item). The PVS-Studio analyzer must be present in the list of installed components.

The basics of using PVS-Studio

When working in the Visual Studio IDE, you can run different types of the analysis - at the solution, project file, the selected items, etc. For example, the analysis solutions run is executed as follows: "PVS-Studio -> Check -> Solution".

After launching the verification, the progress bar will appear with the buttons Pause (to pause the analysis) and Stop (to terminate the analysis). Potentially dangerous constructs will be displayed in the list of detected errors during the analysis procedure.

The term "a potentially dangerous construct" means that the analyzer considers a particular code line a defect. Whether this line is a real defect in an application or not is determined only by the programmer who knows the application. You must correctly understand this principle of working with code analyzers: no tool can completely replace a programmer when solving the task of fixing errors in programs. Only the programmer who relies on his knowledge can do this. But the tool can and must help him with it. That is why the main task of the code analyzer is to reduce the number of code fragments the programmer must look through and decide what to do with them.

Work with a list of diagnostic messages

in real large projects, there will be not dozens but hundreds or even thousands of diagnostic messages and it will be a hard task to review them all. To make it easier, the PVS-Studio analyzer provides several mechanisms. The first mechanism is filtering by the error code. The second is filtering by the contents of the diagnostic messages' text. The third is filtering by file paths. Let's examine examples of using filtering systems.

Suppose you are sure that the diagnostic messages with the code V112 (using magic numbers) are never real errors in your application. In this case you may turn off the display of these diagnostic warnings in the analyzer's settings:

After that, all the diagnostic warnings with the code V112 will disappear from the error list. Note that you do not need to restart the analyzer. If you turn on these messages again, they will appear in the list without relaunching the analysis as well.

Now let's look at another option - a text-based diagnostic messages filtering. Let's look at an example of analyzer warning and code on which it was issued:

obj.specialFunc(obj);

Analyzer warning: V678 An object is used as an argument to its own method. Consider checking the first actual argument of the 'specialFunc' function.

The analyzer found it suspicious that the same object is passed as an argument to from which this method is called. A programmer, as opposed to the analyzer may be aware of what usage of this method is acceptable. Therefore, you might need to filter out all such warnings. You can do this by adding the related filter in settings "Keyword Message Filtering".

After that, all the diagnostic messages whose text contains that expression will disappear from the error list, without the necessity of restarting the code analyzer. You may get turn them on back by simply deleting the expression from the filter.

The last mechanism of reducing the number of diagnostic messages is filtering by masks of project files' names and file paths.

Suppose your project employs the Boost library. The analyzer will certainly inform you about potential issues in this library. But if you are sure that these messages are not relevant for your project, you may simply add the path to the folder with Boost on the page "Don't check files":

After that diagnostic messages related to files in this folder will not be displayed.

Also, PVS-Studio has the "Mark as False Alarm" function. It enables you to mark those lines in your source code which cause the analyzer to generate false alarms. After marking the code, the analyzer will not produce diagnostic warnings on this code. This function makes it more convenient to use the analyzer permanently during the software development process when verifying newly written code.

Thus, in the following example, we turned off the diagnostic messages with the code V640:

for (int i = 0; i < m; ++i)
  for (int j = 0; j < n; ++j)
    matrix[i][j] = Square(i) + 2*Square(j);
  cout << "Matrix initialization." << endl; //-V640
....

This function is described in more detail in the section "Suppression of false alarms".

There are also some other methods to influence the display of diagnostic messages by changing the code analyzer's settings but they are beyond the scope of this article. We recommend you to refer to the documentation on the code analyzer's settings.

Is it necessary to fix all the potential errors the analyzer informs about?

When you have reviewed all the messages generated by the code analyzer, you will find both real errors and constructs which are not errors. The point is that the analyzer cannot detect 100% exactly all the errors in programs without producing the so called "false alarms". Only the programmer who knows and understands the program can determine if there is an error in each particular case. The code analyzer just significantly reduces the number of code fragments the developer needs to review.

So, there is certainly no reason for correcting all the potential issues the code analyzer refers to.

Suppression mechanisms of individual warnings and mass analyzer messages suppression are described in the articles "Suppression of false alarms" and "Mass Suppression of Analyzer Messages".

Analyzing Visual Studio / MSBuild / .NET Core projects from the command line using PVS-Studio

Running analysis of sln and csproj/vcxproj files
Specification of individual files for analysis
Wildcard filtration of the analyzed
Command-line tools exit codes
- PVS-Studio_Cmd exit codes (Windows)
- pvs-studio-dotnet exit codes (Linux / macOS)
Analysis run from the command line for C/C++ projects that don't use the Visual Studio build system
Effect of PVS-Studio settings on command line run; filtering and converting analysis results (plog\json file)

This document covers the usage of command-line utilities for the analysis of MSBuild projects (.vcxproj / .csproj) and Visual Studio solutions.

This document covers the usage of command line utilities. Usage of plugins for Visual Studio and JetBrains Rider is described in the following documentation sections: "Getting acquainted with the PVS-Studio static code analyzer on Windows", "Using PVS-Studio with JetBrains Rider".

The command-line analyzer of MSBuild projects has various names on different platforms supported by the analyzer:

PVS-Studio_Cmd (analysis of solutions, C#, C++ projects on Windows);
pvs-studio-dotnet (analysis of solutions, C# projects on Linux / macOS);

The features described below are relevant for both utilities. Examples with PVS-Studio_Cmd / pvs-studio-dotnet are interchangeable unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Note. To analyze C++ projects that don't use the MSBuild build system, on Windows use the compilation monitoring system or direct integration of the analyzer into the build system. Analysis of C++ projects on Linux / macOS is described in detail in this section of the documentation.

Running analysis of sln and csproj/vcxproj files

Command line utilities are unpacked to the following directories by default:

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe
- Windows: "C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\";
pvs-studio-dotnet
- Linux: "/usr/share/pvs-studio-dotnet/";
- macOS: "/usr/local/share/pvs-studio-dotnet".

'--help' command displays all available arguments of the analyzer:

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe --help

Let's look at the main arguments of the analyzer:

--target (-t): required parameter. Allows you to specify the object to be tested (sln or csproj/vcxproj file);
--output (-o): path to the file, where the analysis results will be written. If this parameter is omitted, the analyzer report file will be created next to the file specified using the '--target' flag. The analyzer report can be saved in 2 formats: .json and. plog. The format type is determined by the specified extension. By default, a report in the .plog format will be created without specifying this flag;
--platform (-p) and --configuration (-c): the check will be run for the specified platform and configuration. If these parameters are not specified, the first available "platform|configuration" (when checking the sln file) pair will be selected or "Debug|AnyCPU" (when checking a separate csproj project) or "Debug|Win32" (when checking a separate vcxproj project);
--sourceFiles (-f): path to the text file containing a list of paths to source files for the analysis (each must be on a separate line). Relative and absolute paths are supported. In this mode, when analyzing C and C++ files, a compilation dependency cache is generated, the location of which can be controlled using the '-D' flag;
--dependencyRoot (-D): an optional path to the directory where the source file dependency caches are located. Works in addition to the '--sourceFiles' (-f) flag;
--dependencyCacheSourcesRoot (-R): an optional path to specify the root directory of relative source file paths in dependency caches generated with '--sourceFiles' (-f) flag;
--settings (-s): path to the PVS-Studio configuration file. If this parameter is omitted, the Settings.xml file will be used, located in the directory "C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Roaming\PVS-Studio\" on Windows or "~/.config/PVS-Studio/" on Linux / macOS. These same settings files are used by plugins (Visual Studio, Rider), which makes it possible to edit them using the PVS-Studio plugin interface in these IDEs. Please note that for the analyzer to work under Windows, the settings file must contain registration information. Various ways to enter a license are described here. Depending on the settings file used, the following rules apply:
- when using the default settings file it must contain registration information;
- if you explicitly specify the path to the settings file, the registration information must be written either in the specified settings file or in the default settings file;
--licFile (-l): path to the PVS-Studio license file. This flag is available only in pvs-studio-dotnet. If the parameter is omitted, the PVS-Studio.lic license file will be used, which is located in the "~/.config/PVS-Studio/ " directory.
--suppressAll (-a): add unsuppressed warnings in suppress files of corresponding projects (disabled by default). If this flag is present, all messages will be added to the suppress warnings base after saving the check result. The flag supports 2 operating modes.
- SuppressOnly adds messages from the passed analyzer report to the suppress files without running the analysis;
- AnalyzeAndSuppress runs the analysis, saves the analyzer report, and only after this suppresses the messages found in it. This mode allows you to get a report from the analyzer on regular runs, which contains only new messages for the changed \ written code, i.e. new messages get into the new log and get immediately suppressed - they won't be issued during the subsequent check. However, if you still need to view the old messages (without rechecking), a file with the full check report (only for .plog analyzer reports) will be saved next to the analyzer report containing new messages. Read more about message suppression mode in this section of the documentation;
--sourceTreeRoot (-e): the root part of the path that PVS-Studio will use when generating relative paths in diagnostic messages. Setting this parameter overrides the 'SourceTreeRoot' value in the PVS-Studio settings;
--incremental (-i): incremental analysis mode. For more information about incremental analysis in PVS-Studio, see the section "PVS-Studio incremental analysis mode". Note, that this mode is available only under Enterprise PVS-Studio license. There are following modes of incremental analysis available:
- Scan - analyze all dependencies to determine, which files will be analyzed incrementally. The analysis itself won't be performed. Changes made since the last build will be taken into account, and the previous history of changes will be deleted.
- AppendScan - analyze all dependencies to determine, which files will be analyzed incrementally. The analysis itself won't be performed. Changes made since the last build, as well as all previous changes, will be taken into account.
- Analyze - perform incremental analysis. This step should be done after Scan or AppendScan and can be performed both before and after the build of a solution or project. Static analysis will only be performed for files from the list obtained by executing the Scan or AppendScan commands.
- ScanAndAnalyze - analyze all the dependencies to determine which files should be analyzed incrementally and perform incremental analysis of the edited files with the source code. Changes made since the last build will be taken into account.
--msBuildProperties (-m): allows you to set or redefine project level properties. To set or redefine multiple project level properties, use the "|" symbol, for example: --msBuildProperties WarningLevel=2|OutDir=bin\OUT32\
--excludeDefines (-x): a list of symbols that will be excluded from the current set when analyzing the project. If you need to list several symbols, use ';' as the delimiter. Example: --excludeDefines "DEF1;DEF2". This option is only taken into account when analyzing C# projects.
--appendDefines (-d): a list of symbols that will be added to the current set when analyzing the project. If you need to list several symbols, use ';' as the delimiter. Example: --appendDefines "DEF1;DEF2". This option is only taken into account when analyzing C# projects.
--selectProjects (-S): a list of analyzed solution's projects (sln) to be analyzed. Other projects will be excluded from the analysis. It supports listing projects using the name of the project file (with or without an extension), using an absolute or relative path. If you need to list multiple projects, use ';' as the delimiter. Example: --selectProjects Project1;"Project 2.vcxproj";".\Project3\Project3.csproj".
--excludeProjects (-E): a list of projects in the analyzed solution (sln) that will be excluded from the analysis. It supports listing projects using the name of the project file (with or without an extension), using an absolute or relative path. If you need to list multiple projects, use ';' as the delimiter. Example: --excludeProjects Project1;"Project 2.vcxproj";".\Project3\Project3.csproj".
--rulesConfig (-C): path to the .pvsconfig diagnostics configuration file. It can be used together with configuration files from projects / solutions and configuration files from directories:
- Windows: "%AppData%\PVS-Studio\";
- Linux / macOS: "~/.config/PVS-Studio/".

Here is an example of running a check of the files list written in "pvs.txt", from the solution "My Solution":

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe --target "mysolution.sln" --platform "Any CPU" 
--configuration "Release" --output "mylog.plog"
--sourceFiles "pvs.txt" --progress

PVS-Studio command-line version supports all settings on filtering/disabling messages available in the IDE plugin for Visual Studio. You can either set them manually in the xml file, passed through the '--settings' argument, or use the settings specified through the UI plugin, without passing this argument. Note that the PVS-Studio IDE plugin uses an individual set of settings for each user in the system.

Only relevant for PVS-Studio_Cmd. If you have installed multiple instances of PVS-Studio of different versions for the current system user, all instances of the program will use the installation directory specified during the last installation. To avoid conflicts in the analyzer's operation, in the settings passed with the --settings (-s) argument, the path to the installation directory (the value of the <InstallDir> element) must be specified.

Specification of individual files for analysis

PVS-Studio_Cmd allows you to selectively check individual files specified in the list passed using the '--sourceFiles' (-f) flag. The file list is a simple text file that contains line-by-line paths to the files being checked. Relative file paths will be expanded relative to the current working directory. You can specify both compiled source files (c/cpp for C++ and cs for C#), and header files (h/hpp for C++).

In this mode, when analyzing C and C++ files, a compilation dependency cache is generated, which will be used for subsequent analysis runs. By default, dependency caches are saved in a special '.PVS-Studio' subdirectory where project files (.vcxproj) are located. If necessary, you can change their storage location using the '--dependencyRoot' (-D) flag. By default, dependency caches keep full paths to source files, and relocation of project files will cause caches' regeneration. You can generate portable caches by specifying the '--dependencyCacheSourcesRoot' (-R) flag, which will cause the source file paths inside caches to be generated relative to it.

Wildcard filtration of the analyzed

To specify the list of analyzed files with path patterns, you need to pass a specially formatted XML file to the '--sourceFiles' (-f) flag. It accepts the list of absolute and relative paths and/or wildcards to analyzed files.

<SourceFilesFilters>
  <SourceFiles>
    <Path>C:\Projects\Project1\source1.cpp</Path>
    <Path>\Project2\*</Path>
    <Path>source_*.cpp</Path>
  </SourceFiles>
  <SourcesRoot>C:\Projects\</SourcesRoot>
</SourceFilesFilters>

Command-line tools exit codes

The PVS-Studio_Cmd / pvs-studio-dotnet utilities have several non-zero exit codes that don't indicate a problem with the utility itself, i.e. even if the utility returned not '0', it doesn't mean that it crashed. The exit code is a bit mask that masks all possible states that occurred during the operation of the utility. For example, the utility will return a non-zero code if the analyzer finds potential errors in the code being checked. This allows you to handle this situation separately, for example, on the build server, when the analyzer usage policy doesn't imply the presence of warnings in the code uploaded in the version control system.

PVS-Studio_Cmd exit codes (Windows)

Let's look at all possible utility state codes that form the bit mask of the return code.

'0' - the analysis was completed successfully, no errors were found in the code being checked;
'1' - an error (crash) of the analyzer when checking one of the files;
'2' - a general (non-specific) error during the analyzer operation, intercepted exception during operation. This usually signals the presence of an error in the analyzer code itself and is followed by this error's stack trace in stderr. If you stumbled upon such an error, please, help us make the analyzer better and send this stack trace to us;
'4' - some of the passed command-line arguments are incorrect;
'8' - the specified project, solution, or analyzer settings file wasn't found;
'16' - the specified configuration and / or platform weren't found in the solution file;
'32' - the solution or project file isn't supported or contains errors;
'64' - invalid extension of the solution or project being checked;
'128' - invalid or expired analyzer license;
'256' - potential errors were found in the code being checked;
'512' - an error occurred while performing message suppression
'1024' - indicates that the analyzer license will expire within a month;

Here is an example of a Windows batch script for decrypting the return code of the PVS-Studio_Cmd utility:

@echo off

"C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe"
-t "YourSolution.sln" -o "YourSolution.plog"

set /A FilesFail = "(%errorlevel% & 1) / 1"
set /A GeneralExeption = "(%errorlevel% & 2) / 2"
set /A IncorrectArguments = "(%errorlevel% & 4) / 4"
set /A FileNotFound = "(%errorlevel% & 8) / 8"
set /A IncorrectCfg = "(%errorlevel% & 16) / 16"
set /A InvalidSolution = "(%errorlevel% & 32) / 32"
set /A IncorrectExtension = "(%errorlevel% & 64) / 64"
set /A IncorrectLicense = "(%errorlevel% & 128) / 128"
set /A AnalysisDiff = "(%errorlevel% & 256) / 256"
set /A SuppressFail = "(%errorlevel% & 512) / 512"
set /A LicenseRenewal = "(%errorlevel% & 1024) / 1024"

if %FilesFail% == 1 echo FilesFail
if %GeneralExeption% == 1 echo GeneralExeption
if %IncorrectArguments% == 1 echo IncorrectArguments
if %FileNotFound% == 1 echo FileNotFound
if %IncorrectCfg% == 1 echo IncorrectConfiguration
if %InvalidSolution% == 1 echo IncorrectCfg
if %IncorrectExtension% == 1 echo IncorrectExtension
if %IncorrectLicense% == 1 echo IncorrectLicense
if %AnalysisDiff% == 1 echo AnalysisDiff
if %SuppressFail% == 1 echo SuppressFail
if %LicenseRenewal% == 1 echo LicenseRenewal

pvs-studio-dotnet exit codes (Linux / macOS)

Note. Since the maximum value of the exit code under Unix is limited by 255, exit codes of the PVS-Studio_Cmd (where the exit code may exceed 255) and pvs-studio-dotnet utilities are different.

Let's look at all possible utility state codes that form the bit mask of the return code.

'0' - analysis was successfully completed, no issues were found in the source code;
'1' - incorrect or out-of-date analyzer license;
'2' - general error in the analyzer's operation. This includes missed command-line arguments, invalid solution or project specified for analysis, an error inside the analyzer, etc. If an error message is followed by a stack trace, please help us improve the analyzer by sending it to us;
'4' - indicates that the analyzer license will expire within a month;
'8' - some issues were found in the source code;

Analysis run from the command line for C/C++ projects that don't use the Visual Studio build system

Note. This section is relevant for Windows. Analysis of C++ projects on Linux / macOS is described in the corresponding section of the documentation.

If your C/C++ project doesn't use standard Visual Studio build systems (VCBuild/MSBuild) or even uses your own build system / make files via NMAKE Visual Studio projects, you will not be able to check such a project using PVS-Studio_Cmd.

In this case, you can use the compiler monitoring system, which allows you to analyze projects regardless of their build system, "intercepting" the start of compilation processes. The compilation monitoring system can be used either from the command line or through the user interface of the C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI application.

You can also directly embed the command line launch of the analyzer core right into your build system. Mind you, this will require writing a call to the PVS-Studio analyzer.exe core for each compiled file, similar to the the way how the C++ compiler is called.

Effect of PVS-Studio settings on command line run; filtering and converting analysis results (plog\json file)

When you run code analysis from the command line, the default settings are the same as when you run analysis from the IDE (Visual Studio / Rider). You can also specify which settings file to use via the --settings argument, as described above.

For example, as for the filter system (Keyword Message Filtering and Detectable Errors), it is NOT used when analyzing from the command line. Which means that the report file will contain all error messages regardless of the parameters you set. However, when you upload the results file to the IDE, the filters will already be applied. This is because filters are applied dynamically to results. The same occurs when running from the IDE as well. This is very convenient, because when you get a list of messages, you may want to disable some of them (for example, V201). Just disable them in the settings and the corresponding messages will disappear from the list WITHOUT restarting the analysis.

The analyzer report format isn't intended for direct display or human reading. However, if you need to filter the analysis results in some way and convert them to a "readable" view, you can use the PlogConverter utility distributed with PVS-Studio.

To work with reports in different formats, you need to use different utilities:

.plog – PlogConverter.exe (available only on Windows);
.json – plog-converter (Linux, macOS).

The source code of both utilities is open and available for download: PlogConverter; plog-converter, which allows you to simply add support for new formats based on existing algorithms.

These utilities are described in more detail in the corresponding sections of the documentation:

PlogConverter – "Working with XML report (. plog file)" (subsection "Converting the analysis results");
plog-converter- "How to run PVS-Studio on Linux and macOS" (subsection "Plog Converter Utility").

Compiler Monitoring System in PVS-Studio

Introduction
Working principles
Getting started with CLMonitor.exe
Saving compilation monitoring dump and running analysis from this dump
Using compiler monitoring from UI client (Standalone.exe)
Compiler monitoring from Visual Studio
Specifics of monitoring a build process of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM
Incremental analysis
Conclusion

Introduction

The PVS-Studio Compiler Monitoring system (CLMonitoring) was designed for "seamless" integration of the PVS-Studio static analyzer into any build system under Windows that employs one of the preprocessors supported by the PVS-Studio.exe command-line analyzer (Visual C++, GCC, Clang, Keil MDK ARM Compiler 5/6, IAR C/C++ Compiler for ARM) for compilation.

To perform correct analysis of the source C/C++ files, the PVS-Studio.exe analyzer needs intermediate .i files which are actually the output of the preprocessor containing all the headers included into the source files and expanded macros. This requirement defines why one can't "just take and check" the source files on the disk - besides these files themselves, the analyzer will also need some information necessary for generating those .i files. Note that PVS-Studio doesn't include a preprocessor itself, so it has to rely on an external preprocessor in its work.

As the name suggests, the Compiler Monitoring system is based on "monitoring" compiler launches when building a project, which allows the analyzer to gather all the information essential for analysis (that is, necessary to generate the preprocessed .i files) of the source files being built. In its turn, it allows the user to check the project by simply rebuilding it, without having to modify his build scripts in any way.

This monitoring system consists of a compiler monitoring server (the command-line utility CLMonitor.exe) and UI client (Standalone.exe), and it is responsible for launching the analysis (CLMonitor.exe can be also used as a client when launched from the command line).

In thedefault mode, the system doesn't analyze the hierarchy of the running processes; instead, it just monitors all the running processes in the system. It means that it will also know if a number of projects are being built in parallel and monitor them.

CLMonitor.exe can monitor only compiler runs, that have been generated by the specified (by PID) parent process. Such operational mode is provided for the case, when several projects are simultaneously built, but you need to monitor compiler runs only for a specific project or solution. Child processes monitoring mode will be described below.

Working principles

CLMonitor.exe server monitors launches of processes corresponding to the target compiler (for example cl.exe for Visual C++ and g++.exe for GCC) and collects information about the environment of these processes. Monitoring server will intercept compiler invocations only for the same user it was itself launched under. This information is essential for a correct launch of static analysis to follow and includes the following data:

the process main folder
the full process launch string (i.e. the name and all the launch arguments of the exe file)
the full path to the process exe file
the process environment system variables

Once the project is built, the CLMonitor.exe server must send a signal to stop monitoring. It can be done either from CLMonitor.exe itself (if it was launched as a client) or from Standalone's interface.

When the server stops monitoring, it will use the collected information about the processes to generate the corresponding intermediate files for the compiled files. And only then the PVS-Studio.exe analyzer itself is launched to carry out the analysis of those intermediate files and output a standard PVS-Studio's report you can work with both from the Standalone version and any of the PVS-Studio IDE plugins.

Getting started with CLMonitor.exe

Note: in this section, we will discuss how to use CLMonitor.exe to integrate the analysis into an automated build system. If you only to check some of your projects manually, consider using the UI version of C and C++ Compiler Monitoring (Standalone.exe) as described below.

CLMonitor.exe is a monitoring server directly responsible for monitoring compiler launches. It must be launched prior to the project build process. After launching the server in monitoring mode, it will trace the invocations of supported compilers.

The supported compilers are:

Microsoft Visual C++ (cl.exe) compilers
C/C++ compilers from GNU Compiler Collection (gcc.exe, g++.exe) and its derivatives
Clang (clang.exe) compiler and its derivatives
Keil MDK ARM Compiler 5/6
IAR C/C++ Compiler for ARM
Texas Instruments ARM Compiler
GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain

But if you want the analysis to be integrated directly into your build system (or a continuous integration system and the like), you can't "just" launch the monitoring server because its process blocks the flow of the build process while active. That's why you need to launch CLMonitor.exe with the monitor argument in this case:

CLMonitor.exe monitor

In this mode, CLMonitor will launch itself in the monitoring mode and then terminate, while the build system will be able to continue its work. At the same time, the second CLMonitor process (launched from the first one) will stay running and monitoring the build process.

Since there are no consoles attached to the CLMonitor process in this mode, the monitoring server will - in addition to the standard stdin\stdout streams - output its messages into a Windows event log (Event Logs -> Windows Logs -> Application).

Also you can monitor only compiler runs that have been generated by a specific process specified by PID. To do this, you need to run CLMonitor.exe in the monitoring mode with arguments trace and --parentProcessID ('-p' short version). The argument --parentProcessID as a parameter has to obtain the process PID, which is supposed to be the parent of the compiler processes to run. The CLMonitor.exe command line might look as follows in this case:

CLMonitor.exe trace –-parentProcessID 10256

If you perform the build from the console and you want CLMonitor.exe to monitor only the build, launched from that very console, you can run CLMonitor.exe with the argument --attach (-a):

CLMonitor.exe monitor –-attach

In this operational mode, the program will monitor only those compiler instances which are child processes of the console process, from which the build was run.

We need to take into account, that the MSBuil build system leaves some MSbuild.exe processes from the previous builds running. In this case, CLMonitor.exe monitoring child processes, won't be able to track compiler runs, generated by those remaining MSBuild.exe processes. That is so because these MSBuild.exe processes, most likely, aren't included in the hierarchy of the process specified by the argument --parentProcessID. Thus, before running CLMonitor.exe in the mode of monitoring child processes, we recommend terminating MSBuild.exe processes remaining in the system from the previous build.

Note: for the monitoring server to run correctly, it must be launched with the same privileges as the compiler processes themselves.

To ensure correct logging of messages in the system event logs, you need to launch the CLMonitor.exe process with elevated (administrative) privileges at least once. If it has never been launched with such privileges, it will not be allowed to write the error messages into the system log.

Notice that the server only records messages about its own runtime errors (handled exceptions) into the system logs, not the analyzer-generated diagnostic messages!

Once the build is finished, run CLMonitor.exe in the client mode so that it can generate the preprocessed files and call the static analyzer itself:

CLMonitor.exe analyze -l "c:\test.plog"

As the '-l' argument, the full path to the analyzer's log file must be passed.

When running as a client, CLMonitor.exe will connect to the already running server and start generating the preprocessed files. The client will receive the information on all of the compiler invocations that were detected and then the server will terminate. The client, in its turn, will launch preprocessing and PVS-Studio.exe analyzer for all the source files which have been monitored.

When finished, CLMonitor.exe will save a log file (C:\ptest.plog) which can be viewed in Visual Studio PVS-Studio IDE plugin or Compiler Monitoring UI client (Standalone.exe, PVS-Studio|Open/Save|Open Analysis Report).

You can also use the analyzer message suppression mechanism with CLMonitor through the '-u' argument:

CLMonitor.exe analyze -l "c:\ptest.plog" -u "c:\ptest.suppress" -s

The '-u' argument specifies a full path to the suppress file, generated through the 'Message Suppression' dialog in Compiler Monitoring UI client (Standalone.exe, Tools|Message Suppression...). The optional '-s' argument allows you to append the suppress file specified through the -u with newly generated messages from the current analysis run.

For setting additional display parameters and messages filtration you can pass the path to the file of diagnostics configuration (.pvsconfig) using the argument '-c':

CLMonitor.exe analyze -l "c:\ptest.plog" -c "c:\filter.pvsconfig"

Saving compilation monitoring dump and running analysis from this dump

CLMonitor.exe allows you to save information it gathered from monitoring a compilation process in a dump file. This will make possible re-running the analysis without the need to re-build a project and monitor this build. To save a dump you will first need to run monitoring in a regular way with either trace or monitor commands, as described above. After the build is finished, you can stop monitoring and save dump file. For this, run CLMonitor.exe with the saveDump command:

CLMonitor.exe saveDump -d c:\monitoring.zip

You can also finish monitoring, save dump file and run the analysis on the files that the monitoring have caught. For this, specify a path to the dump file to the CLMonitor.exe analyze command:

CLMonitor.exe analyze -l "c:\ptest.plog" -d c:\monitoring.zip

Running the analysis from the pre-generated dump file is possible with the following command:

CLMonitor.exe analyzeFromDump -l "c:\ptest.plog" 
-d c:\monitoring.zip

Compilation monitoring dump file is a simple zip archive, containing a list of parameters from compiler processes that CLMonitor had caught (such as process command line arguments, environment variables, current working directory and so on) in an XML format. The analyzeFromDump command supports running the analysis form both the zipped dump file and an un-zipped XML.

Using compiler monitoring from UI client (Standalone.exe)

For the "manual" check of individual projects with CLMonitor, you can use the interface of the Compiler Monitoring UI client (Standalone.exe) which can be launched from the Start menu.

To start monitoring, open the dialog box: Tools -> Analyze Your Files... (Figure 1):

Figure 1 - The compiler monitoring start dialog box

Click "Start Monitoring" button. CLMonitor.exe process will be launched and the environment main window will be minimized.

Start building your project, and when it's done, click the "Stop Monitoring" button in the bottom right-hand corner of the window (Figure 2):

Figure 2 - The monitoring management dialog box

If the monitoring server has successfully tracked all the compiler launches, the preprocessed files will be generated first and then they will be analyzed. When the analysis is finished, you will see a standard PVS-Studio's report (Figure 3):

Figure 3 - The resulting output of the monitoring server and the analyzer

The report can be saved as an XML file (a .plog file): File -> Save PVS-Studio Log As...

Compiler monitoring from Visual Studio

A convenient navigation for analyzer messages and source code navigation is available in Visual Studio IDE through PVS-Studio extension. If the project to be analyzed can be opened inside this IDE, but the 'regular' analysis by PVS-Studio (i.e. PVS-Studio|Check|Solution) is not available (for example, for makefile Visual Studio projects), it is still possible to have all the benefits of Visual Studio by loading the analysis results (plog file) into PVS-Studio by the ' PVS-Studio|Open/Save|Open Analysis Report...' command. This action can also be automated, through the use of Visual Studio automation mechanism, by tying it, and also the analysis itself, to the project build event. As an example, let's review the integration of PVS-Studio analysis through compiler monitoring into a makefile project. Such type of projects is used, for instance, by the build system of Unreal Engine projects under Windows.

As a command to run the build of our makefile project, let's specify the run.bat file:

Figure 4 – configuring makefile project

The contents of the run.bat file are the following:

set slnPath=%1
set plogPath="%~2test.plog"
"%ProgramFiles(X86)%\PVS-Studio\CLMonitor.exe" monitor
waitfor aaa /t 10 2> NUL
nmake
"%ProgramFiles(X86)%\PVS-Studio\CLMonitor.exe" analyze -l %plogPath%
cscript LoadPlog.vbs %slnPath% %plogPath%

As arguments to run.bat, we pass the paths to solution and project. Compiler monitoring is first launched with CLMonitor.exe. The 'waitfor' command is used as a delay between launching the monitoring and building the project – without it, monitoring might not catch the first compiler invocations. Next step is the build command itself – nmake. After build is finished, we run the analysis, and after this is complete (the analysis results are saved along the project file), we load the results into Visual Studio with the 'LoadPlog.vbs' script. Here is this script:

Set objArgs = Wscript.Arguments
Dim objSln
Set objSln = GetObject(objArgs(0))
Call objSln.DTE.ExecuteCommand("PVSStudio.OpenAnalysisReport",
    objArgs(1))

Here we use the DTE.ExecuteCommand function from the Visual Studio automation to access our running Visual Studio (in which our solution is currently open) instance directly from the command line. Running this command is virtually identical to clicking the 'PVS-Studio|Open/Save|Open Analysis Report...' menu item in the UI.

To find a running Visual Studio instance, we use the GetObject method. Please take a note that this method uses the solution path to identify the running Visual Studio instance. Therefore, when using it, opening the same solution in several instances of Visual Studio is inadvisable – the method could potentially "miss" and analysis results will be opened inside the wrong IDE instance – not the one that was used to run the build\analysis.

Specifics of monitoring a build process of IAR Embedded Workbench for ARM

Sometimes, IAR Embedded Workbench IDE can set up the current working directory of the compiler process (iccarm.exe) to 'C:\Windows\System32' during the build process. Such behavior can cause issues with the analysis, considering that current working directory of the compiler process is where CLMonitoring stores its intermediate files.

To avoid writing intermediate files to 'C:\Windows\System32', which in turn can cause insufficient access rights errors, a workspace should be opened by double clicking the workspace file ('eww' extension) in Windows explorer. In this case, intermediate files will be stored in the workspace file's directory.

Incremental analysis

In case of necessity of performing the incremental analysis when using the Compiler Monitoring system, it is enough to "monitor" the incremental build, i.e. the compilation of the files that have been modified since the last build. This way of usage will allow to analyze only the modified/newly written code.

Such a scenario is natural for the Compiler Monitoring system. Accordingly, the analysis mode (full or analysis of only modified files) depends only on what build is monitored: full or incremental.

Conclusion

Despite the convenience of the "seamless" analysis integration into the automated build process (through CLMonitor.exe) employed in this mode, one still should keep in mind the natural restrictions inherent in this mode - particularly, that a 100% capture of all the compiler launches during the build process is not guaranteed, which failure may be caused both by the influence of the external environment (for example antivirus software) and the hardware-software environment specifics (for example the compiler may terminate too quickly when running on an SSD disk while CPU's performance is too low to "catch up with" this launch).

That's why we recommend you to provide whenever possible a complete integration of the PVS-Studio static analyzer with your build system (in case you use a build system other than MSBuild) or use the corresponding PVS-Studio IDE plugin.

Direct integration of the analyzer into build automation systems (C/C++)

PVS-Studio analyzer independent mode
An example of using the analyzer independent mode with Makefile project
Managing analysis results generated from using command line analyzer mode
Incremental analysis in independent command line mode
Using Microsoft IntelliSense with analyzer in independent mode
Differences in behavior of PVS-Studio.exe console version while processing one file or several files at once

We recommend utilizing PVS-Studio analyzer through the Microsoft Visual Studio development environments, into which the tool is perfectly integrated. But sometimes you can face situations when command line launch is required, for instance in case of the cross-platform build system based on makefiles.

In case you possess project (.vcproj/.vcxproj) and solution (.sln) files, and command line execution is required for the sake of daily code checks, for instance, we advise you to examine the article "Analyzing Visual C++ (.vcxproj) and Visual C# (.csproj) projects from the command line".

In addition, regardless of the build system being utilized, you can use PVS-Studio compiler monitoring system.

PVS-Studio analyzer independent mode

So, how does a code analyzer work (be it PVS-Studio or any other tool)?

When the analyzer user gives a command to check some file (for example, file.cpp), the analyzer performs preprocessing of this file at first. As a result, all the macros are defined and #include-files are arranged.

The preprocessed i-file can now be parsed by the code analyzer. Pay attention that the analyzer cannot parse a file which has not been preprocessed, for it won't have information about the types, functions and classes being used. Operation of any code analyzer includes at least two steps: preprocessing and analysis itself.

It is possible that C++ sources do not have project files associated with them, for example it is possible in case of multiplatform software or old projects which are built using command line batch utilities. Various Make systems are often employed to control building process in such cases, Microsoft NMake or GNU Make for instance.

To analyze such projects it is necessary to embed the direct call for the analyzer into building process (by default, the file is located at 'programfiles%\PVS-Studio\x64\PVS-Studio.exe') , and to pass all arguments required for preprocessing to it. In fact the analyzer should be called for the same files for which the compiler (cl.exe in case of Visual C++) is being called.

The PVS-Studio analyzer should be called in batch mode for each C/C++ file or for a whole group of files (files with c/cpp/cxx etc. extensions, the analyzer shouldn't be called for header h files) with the following arguments:

PVS-Studio.exe --cl-params %ClArgs%
--source-file %cppFile% --cfg %cfgPath% --output-file %ExtFilePath%

%ClArgs% — arguments which are passed to cl.exe compiler during regular compilation, including the path to source file (or files).

%cppFile% — path to analyzed C/C++ file or paths to a collection of C/C++ files (the filenames should be separated by spaces)

%ClArgs% and %cppFile% parameters should be passed to PVS-Studio analyzer in the same way in which they are passed to the compiler, i.e. the full path to the source file should be passed twice, in each param.

%cfgPath% — path to PVS-Studio.cfg configuration file. This file is shared between all C/C++ files and can be created manually (the example will be presented below)

%ExtFilePath% — optional argument, a path to the external file in which the results of analyzer's work will be stored. In case this argument is missing, the analyzer will output the error messages into stdout. The results generated here can be viewed in Visual Studio's 'PVS-Studio' toolwindow using 'PVS-Studio/Open Analysis Report' menu command (selecting 'Unparsed output' as a file type). Please note, that starting from PVS-Studio version 4.52, the analyzer supports multi-process (PVS-Studio.exe) output into a single file (specified through --output-file) in command line independent mode. This allows several analyzer processes to be launched simultaneously during the compilation performed by a makefile based system. The output file will not be rewritten and lost, as file blocking mechanism had been utilized.

Consider this example for starting the analyzer in independent mode for a single file, utilizing the Visual C++ preprocessor (cl.exe):

PVS-Studio.exe --cl-params "C:\Test\test.cpp" /D"WIN32" /I"C:\Test\"
--source-file "C:\Test\test.cpp" --cfg "C:\Test\PVS-Studio.cfg" 
--output-file "C:\Test\test.log"

The PVS-Studio.cfg (the --cfg parameter) configuration file should include the following lines:

exclude-path = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0
vcinstalldir = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\
platform = Win32
preprocessor = visualcpp
language = C++
skip-cl-exe = no

Let's review these parameters:

The exclude-path parameter contains the directories for which the analysis will not be performed. If the Visual Studio directory is not included here, the analyzer will generate error messages for its' header .h-files. But you of course cannot modify them. Therefore we recommend you to always add this path to the exclusions. It is also possible to set multiple exclude-path parameters.
The vcinstalldir parameter indicates the directory in which the utilized preprocessor is located. The supported preprocessors are: Microsoft Visual C++ (cl.exe), Clang(clang.exe) and MinGW (gcc.exe).
The platform parameter points to the correct version of the compiler — Win32, x64, Itanium or ARMV4. It is usually Win32 or x64.
The preprocessor parameter indicates which preprocessor should be located at vcinstalldir. Supported values are: visualcpp, clang, gcc. Generally, one should select the preprocessor according to the compiler being used by the build automation system in question.
The 'language' parameter determines the version of C/C++ language within the code of the file being verified (--source-file) which is expected by the analyzer during its' parsing process. Possible values are: C, C++, C++CX, C++CLI. As each of the supported language variants does contain specific key words, the incorrect assignment of this parameter could potentially lead to the V001 parsing error messages.

You can filter diagnostics messages generated by analyzer using analyzer-errors and analysis-mode parameters (set them in cfg file of pass through command line). These parameters are optional.

The analyzers-errors parameter allows you to set the codes for errors in which you are interested. For example: analyzer-errors=V112 V111. We do not recommend setting this parameter.
The analysis-mode parameter allows you to control the analyzers being used. Values: 0 - full analysis (by default), 1 - only 64 bit analysis, 4 - only general-purpose analysis, 8 - only optimization analysis. The recommended value is 4.

Also there is a possibility to pass the analyzer a ready-made prepossessed file (i-file), by missing the preprocessing phase and by getting to the analysis. To do this, use the parameter skip-cl-exe, specifying yes. In this mode there is no need to use cl-params parameter. Instead, specify the path to the file (--i-file) and set the type of the preprocessor, used to create this i-file. Specifying the path to the source file (--source file) is also necessary. Despite the fact that the i-file already contains the necessary information for analysis, it may be needed to compare the i-file with the file of the source code, for example, when the analyzer has to look at unexpanded macro. Thus, the call of the analyzer in the independent mode with the specified i-file for the preprocessor Visual C++ (cl.exe) could be:

PVS-Studio.exe --source-file "C:\Test\test.cpp"
  --cfg "C:\Test\PVS-Studio.cfg" --output-file "C:\Test\test.log"

The configuration file PVS-Studio.cfg (parameter --cfg) should contain the following lines:

exclude-path = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0
vcinstalldir = C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\
platform = Win32
preprocessor = visualcpp
language = C++
skip-cl-exe = yes
i-file = C:\Test\test.i

The full list of command line switches will be displayed with this argument:

PVS-Studio.exe –help

It should be noted that when calling PVS-Studio.exe directly, the license information stored in the file 'Settings.xml' is not used. When running PVS-Studio.exe, you should explicitly specify the path to a separate file with the license. This is a text file in the UTF-8 encoding, consisting of the two lines: the name and the key.

The path to the file with the license can be either specified in the PVS-Studio configuration file or passed as a command-line argument. Appropriate parameter: lic-file.

For example, to specify the path to the license file in the .cfg file, you should add the following line:

lic-file = D:\Test\license.lic

An example of using the analyzer independent mode with Makefile project

For example let's take the Makefile project which is build using VisualC++ compiler and it is declared in the project's makefile like this:

$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $<

The $(CC) macro calls cl.exe, the compilation parameters $(CFLAGS) are passed to it and finally all C/C++ files on which the current build target is dependent are inserted using the $< macro. Thereby the cl.exe compiler will be called with required compilation parameters for all source files.

Let's modify this script in such a way that every file is analyzed with PVS-Studio before the compiler is called:

$(PVS) --source-file $< --cl-params $(CFLAGS) $<
--cfg "C:\CPP\PVS-Studio.cfg"
$(CC) $(CFLAGS) $<

$(PVS) - path to analyzer's executable (%programfiles%\PVS-Studio\x64\PVS-Studio.exe). Take into account that the Visual C++ compiler is being called after the analyzer on the next line with the same arguments as before. This is done to allow for all targets to be built correctly so the build would not stop because of the lack of .obj-files.

Managing analysis results generated from using command line analyzer mode

PVS-Studio tool has been developed to work within the framework of Visual Studio environment. And launching it from the command line is the function that is additional to the main working mode. However, all of analyzer's diagnostic capabilities are available.

Error messages, which were generated in this mode, could be easily redirected into the external file with the help of --output-file command line switch. This file will contain the unprocessed and unfiltered analyzer output.

Such a file could be viewed in PVS-Studio IDE extension or C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI (Standalone.exe) by using 'Open Analysis Report' menu command (select 'Unparsed output' as a file type) and afterwards it could be saved in a standard PVS-Studio log file (plog) format. This allows you to avoid the duplication of error messages and also to use all of the standard filtering mechanisms for them.

In addition, the 'raw' unparsed output can be converted to one of the supported formats (xml, html, csv and so on) by using the PlogConverter command line tool.

Incremental analysis in independent command line mode

The users who are familiar with PVS-Studio incremental analysis mode within the IDE naturally will miss this feature in the command line mode. But fortunately, almost any build system could provide an incremental analysis just "out of the box", because by invoking "make" we recompile only file which were modified. So the incremental analysis will be automatically provided by using the independent command line version.

Using Microsoft IntelliSense with analyzer in independent mode

Although it is possible to open the unfiltered text file containing analyzer diagnostic messages from within the IDE into PVS-Studio Output window (which itself will allow you to use file navigation and filtering mechanisms), you will only be able to use the code text editor inside the Visual Studio itself, as the additional IntelliSense functionality will be unavailable (that is, autocompletion, type declarations and function navigation, etc.). And all this is quite inconvenient, especially while you are handling the analysis results, even more so with the large projects, forcing you to search class and method declarations manually. As a result the time for handling a single diagnostic message will be greatly increased.

To solve this issue, you need to create an empty Visual C++ project (Makefile based one for instance) in the same directory with C++ files being verified by the analyzer (vcproj/vcxproj file should be created in the root folder which is above every file verified). After creating an empty project you should enable the 'Show All Files' mode for it (the button is in the upper part of the Solution Explorer window), which will display all the underlying files in the Solution Explorer tree view. Then you will be able to use the 'Include in Project' context menu command to add all the necessary c, cpp and h files into your project (You will also probably have to add include directory paths for some files, for instance the ones containing third-party library includes). If including only a fraction of the files verified, you also should remember that IntelliSense possibly will not recognize some of the types from within these files, as these types could be defined right in the missing files which were not included by you.

Figure 1 — including files into the project

The project file we created could not be used to build or verify the sources with PVS-Studio, but still it will substantially simplify handling of the analysis results. Such a project could also be saved and then used later with the next iteration of analyzer diagnostics results in independent mode.

Differences in behavior of PVS-Studio.exe console version while processing one file or several files at once

The cl.exe compiler is able to process source files as either one at a time or as a whole group of files at once. In the first case the compiler is called several times for each file:

cl.exe ... file1.cpp
cl.exe ... file2.cpp
cl.exe ... file2.cpp

In the second case it is called just once:

cl.exe ... file1.cpp file2.cpp file3.cpp

Both of these modes are supported by the PVS-Studio.exe console version as demonstrated above in the examples.

It could be helpful for a user to understand the analyzer's logics behind theses two modes. If launched individually, PVS-Studio.exe will firstly invoke the preprocessor for each file and the preprocessed file will be analyzed after it. But when processing several files at once, PVS-Studio.exe will firstly preprocess all these files and then separate instances of PVS-Studio.exe will be invoked individually for each one of the resulting preprocessed files.

Analysis of Unreal Engine projects

Analysis using compiler monitoring
Analysis using Unreal Build Tool integration
- Modification of build scripts for building and analyzing
- Enabling various diagnostic groups
Handling the analysis results
- Automatic loading/uploading of logs in IDE

This section describes the analysis of Unreal Engine projects on Windows operating system. The instructions for checking projects under Linux\macOS are available by this link.

Integration with Unreal Build System is available only under Enterprise PVS-Studio license. You can request a trial Enterprise license at the download page.

A specialized build system called Unreal Build System is used for building Unreal Engine projects. This system is integrated over the build system used by the Visual Studio \ JetBrains Rider environment (MSBuild) by utilizing autogenerated makefile MSBuild projects. This is a special type of Visual C++ (vcxproj) projects in which the execution of the build is relegated to the execution of a command calling a third-party utility, for example (but not necessarily), Make. The use of makefile projects allows working with source code of Unreal Engine from Visual Studio \ JetBrains Rider environment, taking advantage of such features as code autocompletion, syntax highlighting, symbol navigation, etc.

Because makefile MSBuild projects themselves do not contain full information, necessary to perform the compilation, and therefore, preprocessing of C/C++ source files, PVS-Studio does not support the analysis of such projects from within Visual Studio, or by PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe command line tool. Therefore, to check such projects with PVS-Studio, you can go two ways - monitoring of compiler invocations (Compiler Monitoring) and direct integration of the PVS-Studio.exe C/C++ analyzer in the Unreal Build Tool utility. Let's consider these options in more detail.

Analysis using compiler monitoring

Unreal Build System uses the Visual C++ compiler-cl.exe for building under Windows. This compiler is supported by the system of PVS-Studio compiler monitoring on Windows. It can be both used from the C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI (Standalone.exe) or from CLMonitor.exe command line tool.

Compiler monitoring can be launched manually from within the Compiler Monitoring UI or it can be assigned to the event of starting\ending builds in Visual Studio. The result of the analysis by the monitoring system is a plog XML report file, which you can open from the Visual Studio PVS-Studio extension, or convert to one of the standard formats (txt, html, csv) using the PlogConverter special tool.

A more detailed description for the system of compiler monitoring is available in this section of the documentation. We recommend using this way to run the analysis when you want to check it for the first time and get acquainted with the analyzer, as this way is the easiest one to set up.

Analysis using Unreal Build Tool integration

A general description of how to integrate PVS-Studio C/C++ analyzer into any build system directly is available here.

In case of Unreal Build System, the developers from Epic Games provide the opportunity to use PVS-Studio through the direct integration with the build utility called Unreal Build Tool, starting from version 4.17.

Before starting the analysis, you should enter your license for the analyzer. For this you need to enter your data in IDE:

'PVS-Studio|Options...|Registration' in Visual Studio;
'Toos|PVS-Studio|Settings...|Registaration' in JetBrains Rider.

Please note, that before Unreal Engine version 4.20, UBT was unable to get the license information from the PVS-Studio common settings file. In case UBT does not recognize a license entered via UI, you should create a separate license file with the name of PVS-Studio.lic and place it to the '%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\PVS-Studio' directory.

Unreal Build Tool allows to run the PVS-Studio analysis by adding the following flag in the command line:

-StaticAnalyzer=PVSStudio

For instance, a full command line of Unreal Build Tool might look as follows:

UnrealBuildTool.exe UE4Client Win32 Debug -WaitMutex -FromMsBuild 
    -StaticAnalyzer=PVSStudio -DEPLOY

To enable analysis when running from IDE, open the project properties for the chosen configuration:

'Properties|Configuration Properties|NMake' in Visual Studio;
'Properties|NMake' in JetBrains Rider;

and add the flag -StaticAnalyzer=PVSStudio in the build and rebuild options (Build Command Line / Rebuild All Command Line).

Note. Note that in this usage scenario, only the analysis will be performed. A build won't be performed.

Note 2. PVS-Studio integration with Unreal Build Tool supports not all analyzer settings, available from Visual Studio (PVS-Studio|Options...). At the moment, PVS-Studio supports adding exceptions for specific directories through 'PVS-Studio|Options...|Don't Check Files', enabling various diagnostic groups, filtration of loaded analysis results through 'Detectable Errors'.

Modification of build scripts for building and analyzing

If you need to configure a simultaneous build and analysis in terms of one Visual Studio configuration, you can create auxiliary scripts (for our example let's name them BuildAndAnalyze and RebuildAndAnalyze, respectively) based on standard Build and Rebuild scripts.

The main change in the RebuildAndAnalyze script is a call for building a new script BuildAndAnalyze.bat, but not Build.bat.

In the BuildAndAnalyze script you need to add removal of actions cache and run of UnrealBuildTool with the analysis flag after performing a successful build.

Actions performed by UBT (builds, analysis and so on) are saved in cache.

Cache removal is needed before the analysis, in order not to save the analysis actions, which will allow for a repeated full analysis. In case if analysis actions are cached, a kind of incremental analysis will be performed on the re-run (only modified files will be analyzed). But the resulting analyzer report will include warnings from all logs (both newly received and old). At the same time if, for example, the analysis is performed by the updated analyzer version (that will include new diagnostic rules), the analyzer won't check unmodified files.

Restoring the cache from the backup is needed to restore saved build actions. If UBT hasn't found saved build actions - build will be re-run.

Removing/restoring the cache is needed in order not to save the analysis results (to be able to perform full analysis again), but not to lose actions on the project build.

Note. Changes described above are based on the standard Build script and the standard script command line. In case if the modified script or non-standard order of arguments is used, additional changes may be required.

Initially, you need to define the number of variables that are needed to remove/restore the action cache file. Operations related to actions cache are relevant for Unreal Engine version 4.21 and later.

SET PROJECT_NAME=%1%
SET PLATFORM=%2%
SET UPROJECT_FILE=%~5

SET ACTIONHISTORY_FOLDER=....
SET ACTION_HISTORY=....
SET ACTION_HISTORY_BAC=%ACTION_HISTORY%.bac
SET ACTIONHISTORY_PATH="%ACTIONHISTORY_FOLDER%\%ACTION_HISTORY%"
SET ACTIONHISTORY_BAC_PATH=
      "%ACTIONHISTORY_FOLDER%\%ACTION_HISTORY_BAC%"

Different variable values for variables ACTIONHISTORY_FOLDER and ACTION_HISTORY are required for various engine versions in the script fragment above.

For version 4.21 and 4.22:

SET ACTIONHISTORY_FOLDER=
      %UPROJECT_FILE%\..\Intermediate\Build\%PLATFORM%\%PROJECT_NAME%
SET ACTION_HISTORY=ActionHistory.bin

For version 4.23 and later:

SET ACTIONHISTORY_FOLDER=
     %UPROJECT_FILE%\..\Intermediate\Build\%PLATFORM%\%PLATFORM%\
     %PROJECT_NAME%
SET ACTION_HISTORY=ActionHistory.dat

After calling UnrealBuildTool for building (and the command 'popd') you need to add the following code:

SET "UBT_ERR_LEVEL=!ERRORLEVEL!"
SET "NEED_TO_PERFORM_ANALYSIS="

IF "!UBT_ERR_LEVEL!"=="0" (
  SET "NEED_TO_PERFORM_ANALYSIS=TRUE"
)

IF "!UBT_ERR_LEVEL!"=="2" (
  SET "NEED_TO_PERFORM_ANALYSIS=TRUE"
)

IF DEFINED NEED_TO_PERFORM_ANALYSIS (
  pushd "%~dp0\..\..\Source"

  ECHO Running static analysis

  IF EXIST %ACTIONHISTORY_PATH% (
    ECHO Copying %ACTION_HISTORY% to %ACTION_HISTORY_BAC%
    COPY %ACTIONHISTORY_PATH% %ACTIONHISTORY_BAC_PATH%
    ECHO Removing %ACTION_HISTORY%: %ACTIONHISTORY_PATH%
    DEL  %ACTIONHISTORY_PATH%
)

  ..\..\Engine\Binaries\DotNET\UnrealBuildTool.exe 
    %* -StaticAnalyzer=PVSStudio -DEPLOY 
  popd

  SET "UBT_ERR_LEVEL=!ERRORLEVEL!"
  
  IF EXIST %ACTIONHISTORY_BAC_PATH% (
    ECHO Recovering %ACTION_HISTORY%
    COPY %ACTIONHISTORY_BAC_PATH% %ACTIONHISTORY_PATH%
    ECHO Removing %ACTION_HISTORY_BAC%: %ACTIONHISTORY_BAC_PATH%
    DEL  %ACTIONHISTORY_BAC_PATH%
  )
)

The most important operations from the code above are the cache removal and recovery as well as the run of UnrealBuildTool with the flag -StaticAnalyzer=PVSStudio to perform the analysis.

If needed, use the modified script when working from the IDE environment. For this, you need to specify it as the one you use in the project properties:

'Properties|Configuration Properties|NMake|Build Command Line' in Visual Studio;
'Properties |NMake|Build Command Line' in JetBrains Rider.

Note that when using modified scripts, you don't need to specify the flag -StaticAnalyzer=PVSStudio in the script launching arguments, as it's already set in the script when running UnrealBuildTool for the analysis.

Enabling various diagnostic groups

Starting from version 4.25 of Unreal Engine you can enable various diagnostic groups.

To select the needed diagnostic groups, you need to modify the target files of the project.

To use the appropriate options from the PVS-Studio settings file (Settings.xml), set the value 'true' for the 'WindowsPlatform PVS.UseApplicationSettings' property (for example, in the constructor) in the target file:

public MyUEProjectTarget( TargetInfo Target) : base(Target)
{
  ....
  WindowsPlatform.PVS.UseApplicationSettings = true;
}

You can also include the necessary diagnostic groups in the target file directly. For example, you can enable diagnostics of micro-optimizations as follows:

WindowsPlatform.PVS.ModeFlags =
  UnrealBuildTool.PVSAnalysisModeFlags.Optimizations;

Valid values for enabling the appropriate diagnostic groups are:

Check64BitPortability;
GeneralAnalysis;
Optimizations;
CustomerSpecific;
MISRA.

To enable several groups of diagnostics, use the '|' operator:

WindowsPlatform.PVS.ModeFlags =
    UnrealBuildTool.PVSAnalysisModeFlags.GeneralAnalysis
  | UnrealBuildTool.PVSAnalysisModeFlags.Optimizations;

Handling the analysis results

The path to the file with the analysis results will be displayed in the Output (Build) Visual Studio window (or stdout, if you launched Unreal Build manually from the command line). This file with results is unparsed - it can be opened in IDE:

by the command 'PVS-Studio|Open/Save|Open Analysis Report' by choosing the 'unparsed output' file type in Visual Studio;
by the command 'Tools|PVS-Studio|Open Report' in JetBrains Rider.

Or you can convert the analysis results using the utility PlogConverter in the way is was described in the section for the XML log above.

You can read more about handling the list of diagnostic warnings in the article "Handling the diagnostic messages list". As for working with the analyzer report - check out the article "Managing XML Analyzer Report (.plog file)".

Automatic loading/uploading of logs in IDE

Automatic loading of the analysis log in the PVS-Studio output window when working in IDE is more convenient. For such a scenario, you need to enable the appropriate option:

'PVS-Studio|Options|Specific Analyzer Settings|Save/Load (analyzer report)|AutoloadUnrealEngineLog' in Visual Studio;
'Tools | PVS-Studio|Settings...|Settings|Save/Load (analyzer report)|Autoload Unreal Engine Log' in JetBrains Rider.

How to run PVS-Studio on Linux and macOS

Introduction
Installing and updating PVS-Studio
Information about a license file
Quick run
Incremental analysis mode
Integration of PVS-Studio into build systems and IDEs
Integration of PVS-Studio with Continuous Integration systems
Filtering and viewing the analyzer report
Notifying the developer teams (blame-notifier utility)
Mass Suppression of Analyzer Messages
- Analysis using pvs-studio-analyzer Utility
- Direct Integration of the Analyzer in the Build System
Common problems and their solutions
Conclusion

Introduction

PVS-Studio static analyzer for C/C++ code is a console application, named pvs-studio, and several supporting utilities. For the program work it is necessary to have configured environment for a build of your project.

A new run of the analyzer is performed for every code file. The analysis results of several source code files can be added to one analyzer report or displayed in stdout.

There are three main work modes of the analyzer:

Integration of pvs-studio call in a build system;
Analyzer integration using modules for CMake/QMake;
Analysis of a project without integration using the pvs-studio-analyzer utility.

Installing and updating PVS-Studio

Examples of commands to install the analyzer from the packages and repositories are given on these pages:

Information about a license file

You can request a license for acquaintance with PVS-Studio via a feedback form.

To save information about a license in file it is necessary to use the following command:

pvs-studio-analyzer credentials NAME KEY [-o LIC-FILE]

PVS-Studio.lic file will be created by default in the ~/.config/PVS-Studio/ directory. In this case it is not necessary to specify it in the analyzer run parameters, it will be caught automatically.

License key for the analyzer is a text file of UTF8 encoding.

You can check a license deadline using this command:

pvs-studio --license-info /path/to/PVS-Studio.lic

Quick run

The best way to use the analyzer is to integrate it into your build system, namely near the compiler call. However, if you want to run the analyzer for a quick test on a small project, use the pvs-studio-analyzer utility.

Important. The project should be successfully compiled and built before analysis.

CMake-project

To check the CMake-project we use the JSON Compilation Database format. To get the file compile_commands.json necessary for the analyzer, you should add one flag to the CMake call:

$ cmake -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=On <src-tree-root>

CMake supports the generation of a JSON Compilation Database for Unix Makefiles.

The analysis starts with the following commands:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze -l /path/to/PVS-Studio.lic
  -o /path/to/project.log -e /path/to/exclude-path -j<N>

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t tasklist
  -o /path/to/project.tasks /path/to/project.log

It is important to understand that all files to be analyzed should be compiled. If your project actively uses code generation, then this project should be built before analysis, otherwise there may be errors during preprocessing.

CMake/Ninja-project

To check the Ninja-project we use the JSON Compilation Database format. To get the necessary file compile_commands.json for the analyzer, you must execute the following commands:

cmake -GNinja <src-tree-root>
ninja -t compdb

The analysis is run with the help of following commands:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze -l /path/to/PVS-Studio.lic
  -o /path/to/project.log -e /path/to/exclude-path -j<N>

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t tasklist
  -o /path/to/project.tasks /path/to/project.log

QBS-project

To check a project using Qt Build System, you must execute the following commands:

qbs generate --generator clangdb

The analysis is run with the help of following commands:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze -l /path/to/PVS-Studio.lic
  -o /path/to/project.log -e /path/to/exclude-path -j<N>

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t tasklist
  -o /path/to/project.tasks /path/to/project.log

Xcode-project (macOS only)

JSON Compilation Database has to be generated using the xcpretty utility:

xcodebuild [flags] | xcpretty -r json-compilation-database

The analysis is run with the help of following commands:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze -l /path/to/PVS-Studio.lic
  -f build/reports/compilation_db.json
  -o /path/to/project.log -e /path/to/exclude-path -j<N>

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t tasklist
  -o /path/to/project.tasks /path/to/project.log

Any project (Linux only)

This utility requires the strace utility.

This can be built with the help of the command:

pvs-studio-analyzer trace -- make

You can use any other build command with all the necessary parameters instead of make, for example:

pvs-studio-analyzer trace -- make debug

After you build your project, you should execute the commands:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze -l /path/to/PVS-Studio.lic
  -o /path/to/project.log -e /path/to/exclude-path -j<N>

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t tasklist
  -o /path/to/project.tasks /path/to/project.log

Analyzer warnings will be saved into the specified project.tasks file. You may see various ways to view and filter the report file in the section "Filtering and viewing the analyzer report" within this document.

If your project isn't CMake or you have problems with the strace utility, you may try generating the file compile_commands.json with the help of the Bear utility. This file will help the analyzer to check a project successfully only in cases where the environment variables don't influence the file compilation.

If you use cross compilers

In this case, the compilers may have special names and the analyzer will not be able to find them. To analyze such a project, you must explicitly list the names of the compilers without the paths:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... --compiler COMPILER_NAME
  --compiler gcc --compiler g++ --compiler COMPILER_NAME

plog-converter ...

Also, when you use cross compilers, the directory with the header files of the compiler will be changed. It's necessary to exclude such directories from the analysis with the help of -e flag, so that the analyzer doesn't issue warnings for these files.

pvs-studio-analyzer ... -e /path/to/exclude-path ...

There shouldn't be any issues with the cross compilers during the integration of the analyzer into the build system.

Response files

You can pass the response file to the pvs-studio-analyzer utility. Response file is a file which contains other command-line arguments.

The response file argument on the command line is indicated by the '@' character, which is followed by the path to the response file (e.g. '@/path/to/file.txt'). The arguments in the response file are separated by spaces/tabs/newlines. If you want to pass an argument that contains a whitespace, you can escape the whitespace with a backslash (\) character or put the whole argument in single ('') or double ("") quotes. You can’t escape quotes inside quotes. There's no difference between single-quoted and double-quoted arguments. Note that the arguments are passed as-is, no other processing takes place like shell variable expansion, glob expansion, etc. Recursive response files are supported.

Incremental analysis mode

For the pvs-studio-analyzer utility, incremental analysis mode is available (analysis of only changed files), for this, you need to run the utility with the parameter --incremental:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... --incremental ...

This mode works independently from the incremental project build. I.g. if your project is completely compiled, the first run of the incremental analysis will still analyze all files. During the next run only changed files will be analyzed.

For monitoring the changed files, the analyzer saves service information in a directory named .PVS-Studio in the launch directory. That's why for using this mode it is always necessary to run the analyzer in one and the same directory.

Integration of PVS-Studio into build systems and IDEs

Examples of integration in CMake, QMake, Makefile, and WAF

Test projects are available in the official PVS-Studio repository on GitHub:

This is how the integration with CLion, QtCreator and Eclipse CDT looks like

Figure 1 shows an example of analyzer warnings viewed in CLion:

Figure 1 - PVS-Studio warnings viewed in CLion

Figure 2 demonstrates an example of analyzer warnings viewed in QtCreator:

Figure 2 - PVS-Studio warnings viewed in QtCreator

Figure 3 shows an example of analyzer warnings viewed in Eclipse CDT:

Figure 3 - PVS-Studio warnings viewed in Eclipse CDT

Preprocessor parameters

The analyzer checks not the source files, but preprocessed files. This method allows the analyzer perform a more in-depth and qualitative analysis of the source code.

In this regard, we have several restrictions for the compilation parameters being passed. These are parameters that hinder the compiler run in the preprocessor mode, or damage the preprocessor output. A number of debugging and optimization flags, for example,-O2, -O3, -g3, -ggdb3 and others, create changes which affect the preprocessor output. Information about invalid parameters will be displayed by the analyzer when they are detected.

This fact does not presuppose any changes in the settings of project to be checked, but part of the parameters should be excluded for the analyzer to run in properly.

Configuration file *.cfg

During integration of the analyzer into the build system, you should pass it a settings file (*.cfg). You may choose any name for the configuration file, but it should be written with a "--cfg" flag.

The settings file with the name PVS-Studio.cfg, which is located in the same directory as the executable file of the analyzer, can be loaded automatically without passing through the command-line parameters.

Possible values for the settings in the configuration file:

exclude-path (optional) specifies the directory whose files it is not necessary to check. Usually these are directories of system files or link libraries. There can be several exclude-path parameters.
platform (required) specifies the platform. Possible variants: linux32 or linux64.
preprocessor (required) specifies the preprocessor. Possible variants: gcc, clang, keil.
language (required) parameter specifies the version of the C/C++ languages that the analyzer expects to see in the code of the file to be analyzed (--source-file). Possible variants: C, C++. Incorrect setting of this parameter can lead to V001 errors, because every supported language variant has certain specific keywords.
lic-file (optional) contains the absolute path to the license file.
analysis-mode (optional) defines the type of warnings. It is recommended that you use the value "4" (General Analysis, suitable for most users).
output-file (optional) parameter specifies the full path to the file, where the report of the analyzer's work will be stored. If this parameter is missing in the configuration file, all messages concerning the errors found will be displayed in the console.
sourcetree-root (optional) by default, during the generation of diagnostic messages, PVS-Studio issues absolute, full paths to the files, where PVS-Studio detected errors. Using this setting you can specify the root part of the path that the analyzer will automatically replace with a special marker. For example, the absolute path to the file /home/project/main.cpp will be replaced with a relative path |?|/main.cpp, if /home/project was specified as the root.
source-file (required) contains the absolute path to the source file to be analyzed.
i-file (required) contains the absolute path to the preprocessed file.
no-noise (optional) will disable the generation of Low Certainty messages (Level 3). When working with large-scale projects, the analyzer might generate a huge number of warnings. Use this setting when it is not possible to fix all the warnings at once, so you can concentrate on fixing the most important warnings first.

An important note:

You don't need to create a new config file to check each file. Simply save the existing settings, for example, lic-file, etc.

Integration of PVS-Studio with Continuous Integration systems

Any of the following methods of integration of the analysis into a build system can be automated in the system Continuous Integration. This can be done in Jenkins, TeamCity and others by setting automatic analysis launch and notification of the found errors.

It is also possible to integrate with the platform of the continuous analysis of SonarQube using the plug-in PVS-Studio. The plugin is available with the analyzer in .tgz archive available to download. Setting instructions are available on this page: "Integration of PVS-Studio analysis results into SonarQube".

Filtering and viewing the analyzer report

Plog Converter Utility

To convert the analyzer bug report to different formats (*.xml, *.tasks and so on) you can use the Plog Converter, which can be found open source.

Enter the following in the command line of the terminal:

plog-converter [options] <path to the file with PVS-Studio log>

All options can be specified in random order.

Available options:

-t - utility output format.
-o - the path to the file that will be used for output. If it is missing, the output will be redirected to the standard output device.
-s - path to the configuration file. The file is similar to the analyzer configuration file PVS-Studio.cfg. Information on the root of the project and the excluded directories (exclude-path) is taken from this file.
-r - a path to the project directory.
-a - set of filtered diagnostic rules. The full list: GA, 64, OP, CS, MISRA. The can be used together with specified levels, for example: "-a GA:1,2;64:1;CS".
-d - a list of excluded diagnostics, separated by a comma: "-d V595,V730".
-m - to enable a display of CWE ID and MISRA ID for the found warnings: " -m cwe -m misra".
-e - use stderr instead of stdout.

Detailed description of the levels of certainty and sets of diagnostic rules is given in the documentation section "Getting Acquainted with the PVS-Studio Static Code Analyzer".

At this point, the available formats are:

xml-a convenient format for further processing of the results of the analysis, which is supported supported by the plugin for SonarQube;
csv - file stores tabular data (numbers and text) in plain text;
errorfile is the output format of the gcc and clang;
tasklist - an error format that can be opened in QtCreator;
html - html report with a short description of the analysis results. It suits best for the e-mailing of the notifications;
fullhtml - report with sorting of the analysis results according to the different parameters and navigation along the source code.
sarif - report generation in the SARIF format. This is an open format for exchanging data between static-analysis tools. More details here.

The result of execution of the utility, is a file containing messages of a specified format, filtered by the rules that are set in the configuration file.

Viewing the analyzer report in QtCreator

The following is an example of a command which would be suitable for most users, for opening the report in QtCreator:

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t tasklist
  -o /path/to/project.tasks /path/to/project.log

Figure 3 demonstrates an example of a .tasks file, viewed in QtCreator:

Figure 4 - A .tasks file viewed in QtCreator

Html Report View in a Web Browser or an Email Client

The analyzer report converter allows generating an Html report of two types:

1. FullHtml - full report to view the results of the analysis. You can search and sort messages by type, file, level, code and warning text. A feature of this report is the ability to navigate to the location of the error, to the source code file. The source code files themselves, which triggered the analyzer warnings, are copied in html and become a part of report. Examples of the report are shown in figures 4-5.

Figure 4 - Example of the Html main page report

Figure 5 - Warning view in code

Example of a command for receiving such a report:

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t fullhtml
  /path/to/project.log -o /path/to/report_dir

This report is convenient to send in an archive, or to provide access by the local network using any web server, for example, Lighttpd, etc.

2. Html is a lightweight report, consisting of a single .html file. It contains brief information about the found warnings and is suitable for notification by email. A report example is shown on the Figure 6.

Figure 6 - Simple Html page example

Example of a command for receiving such a report:

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t html
  /path/to/project.log -o /path/to/project.html

Viewing the analyzer report in Vim/gVim

An example of commands to open the report in gVim editor:

$ plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t errorfile
  -o /path/to/project.err /path/to/project.log

$ gvim /path/to/project.err
:set makeprg=cat\ %
:silent make
:cw

The figure 7 demonstrates an example of viewing an .err file in gVim:

Figure 7 - viewing the .err file in gVim

Viewing the analyzer report in GNU Emacs

An example of commands to open the report in Emacs editor:

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t errorfile
  -o /path/to/project.err /path/to/project.log

emacs
M-x compile
cat /path/to/project.err 2>&1

Figure 8 demonstrates an example of viewing an .err file in Emacs:

Figure 8 - viewing the .err file in Emacs

Viewing the analyzer report in LibreOffice Calc

An example of commands to convert the report in CSV format:

plog-converter -a GA:1,2 -t csv
  -o /path/to/project.csv /path/to/project.log

After opening the file project.csv in LibreOffice Calc, you must add the autofilter: Menu Bar --> Data --> AutoFilter. Figure 9 demonstrates an example of viewing an .csv file in LibreOffice Calc:

Figure 9 - viewing an .csv file in LibreOffice Calc

Configuration file

More settings can be saved into a configuration file with the following options:

enabled-analyzers - an option similar to the -a option in the console string parameters.
sourcetree-root - a string that specifies the path to the root of the source code of the analyzed file. If set incorrectly, the result of the utility's work will be difficult to handle.
errors-off - globally disabled warning numbers that are enumerated with spaces.
exclude-path - a file, the path to which contains a value from this option, will not be initialized.
disabled-keywords- keywords. Messages, pointing to strings which contain these keywords, will be excluded from processing.

The option name is separated from the values by a '=' symbol. Each option is specified on a separate string. Comments are written on separate strings; insert # before the comment.

Adding custom output formats

To add your own output format, follow these steps:

Create your own output class, making it an heir from the IOutput class, and redefine the virtual method void write(const AnalyzerMessage& msg). Describe the message output in the correct format for this method. The fields of the AnalyzerMessage structure are defined in the analyzermessage.h file. The following actions are the same as for the existing output classes (XMLOutput, for example).

In OutputFactory::OutputFactory in m_outputs add your format by analogy with the one that is already specified there. As a variant - add it through the method OutputFactory::registerOutput.

The format will be available as the utility option -t after these actions.

Notifying the developer teams (blame-notifier utility)

The blame-notifier utility is meant for automating the process of notifying developers who have committed the code in the repository for which the PVS-Studio analyzer has issued warnings. The analyzer report is passed to the blame-notifier with specification of additional parameters; the utility finds files that triggered warnings and generates an HTML-report for each "guilty" developer. It is also possible to send a full report: it will contain all warnings related to each "guilty" developer.

The following documentation section describes the ways how to install and use the utility: "Notifying the developer teams (blame-notifier utility)".

Mass Suppression of Analyzer Messages

Mass warnings suppression allows you to easily embed the analyzer in any project and immediately start to benefit from this, i.e. to find new bugs. This mechanism allows you to plan correcting of missed warnings in future, without distracting developers from performing their current tasks.

There are several ways of using this mechanism, depending on the integration of the analyzer.

Analysis using pvs-studio-analyzer Utility

To suppress all analyzer warnings (first time and in subsequent occasions) you need to execute the command:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress /path/to/report.log

If you want to suppress a warning for a specific file, use the --file(-f) flag:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -f test.c /path/to/report.log

In addition to the file itself, you can explicitly specify the line number to suppress:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -f test.c:22 /path/to/report.log

This entry suppresses all warnings that are located on line 22 of the 'test.c' file.

This flag can be specified repeatedly, thus suppressing warnings in several files at once.

In addition to explicit file specification, there is a mechanism for suppressing specific diagnostics:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -v512 /path/to/report.log

The --warning(-v) flag can also be specified repeatedly:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -v1040 -v512 /path/to/report.log

The above-mentioned --file and --warning flags can be combined to suppress warnings more precisely:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -f test.c:22 -v512 /path/to/report.log

So the above command will suppress all v512 diagnostic warnings on line 22 of the 'test.c' file.

Analysis of the project can be run as before. At the same time suppressed warnings will be filtered:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... -s /path/to/suppress.json \
                                -o /path/to/report.log
plog-converter ...

Direct Integration of the Analyzer in the Build System

Direct integration might look as follows:

.cpp.o:
  $(CXX) $(CFLAGS) $(DFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) $< -o $@
  $(CXX) $(CFLAGS) $< $(DFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) -E -o $@.PVS-Studio.i
  pvs-studio --cfg $(PVS_CFG) --source-file $< --i-file $@.PVS-Studio.i
    --output-file $@.PVS-Studio.log

In this mode, the analyzer cannot verify source files and filter them simultaneously. So, filtration and warnings suppression would require additional commands.

To suppress all the warnings, you must also run the command:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress /path/to/report.log

To filter a new log, you must use the following commands:

pvs-studio-analyzer filter-suppressed /path/to/report.log

plog-converter ...

File with suppressed warnings also has the default name suppress_base.json, for which you can optionally specify an arbitrary name.

Common problems and their solutions

1. The strace utility issues the following message:

strace: invalid option -- 'y'

You must update the strace program version. Analysis of a project without integrating it into a build system is a complex task, this option allows the analyzer to get important information about the compilation of a project.

2. The strace utility issues the following message:

strace: umovestr: short read (512 < 2049) @0x7ffe...: Bad address

Such errors occur in the system processes, and do not affect the project analysis.

3. The strace utility issues the following message:

No compilation units found

The analyzer could not find files for analysis. Perhaps you are using cross compilers to build the project. See the section "If you use cross compilers" in this documentation.

4. The analyzer report has strings like this:

r-vUVbw<6y|D3 h22y|D3xJGy|D3pzp(=a'(ah9f(ah9fJ}*wJ}*}x(->'2h_u(ah

The analyzer saves the report in the intermediate format. To view this report, you must convert it to a readable format using a plog-converter utility, which is installed together with the analyzer.

5. The analyzer issues the following error:

Incorrect parameter syntax:
The ... parameter does not support multiple instances.

One of the parameters of the analyzer is set incorrectly several times.

This can happen if part of the analyzer parameters are specified in the configuration file, and part of them were passed through the command line parameters. At the same time, some parameter was accidentally specified several times.

If you use pvs-studio-analyzer, then almost all the parameters are detected automatically, this is why it can work without a configuration file. Duplication of such parameters can also cause this error.

6. The analyzer issues the warning:

V001 A code fragment from 'path/to/file' cannot be analyzed.

If the analyzer is unable to parse some code fragment, it skips it and issues the V001 warning. Such a situation doesn't influence the analysis of other files, but if this code is in the header file, then the number of such warnings can be very high. Send us a preprocessed file (.i) for the code fragment, causing this issue, so that we can add support for it.

Conclusion

If you have any questions or problems with running the analyzer, feel free to contact us.

Running PVS-Studio in Docker

Linux Docker images for projects in C and C++
Linux Docker images for projects in Java
Windows Docker images for projects in C, C++, and C#
Windows Docker images for projects in Java
References

Docker is a software for automating deployment and management of applications in environments that support OS-level virtualization (containers). Docker can "pack" an application with its entire environment and dependencies into a container, that can then be deployed at any system with Docker installation.

Linux Docker images for projects in C and C++

Creating an image

You can use Dockerfile to build an image with the latest version of PVS-Studio included.

On debian-based systems:

FROM gcc:7

# INSTALL DEPENDENCIES
RUN apt update -yq \
 && apt install -yq --no-install-recommends wget \
 && apt clean -yq

# INSTALL PVS-Studio
RUN wget -q -O - https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt | apt-key add - \
 && wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/viva64.list \
    https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.list \
 && apt update -yq \
 && apt install -yq pvs-studio strace \
 && pvs-studio --version \
 && apt clean -yq

On zypper-based systems:

FROM opensuse:42.3

# INSTALL DEPENDENCIES
RUN zypper update -y \
 && zypper install -y --no-recommends wget \
 && zypper clean --all

# INSTALL PVS-Studio
RUN wget -q -O /tmp/viva64.key https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt \
 && rpm --import /tmp/viva64.key \
 && zypper ar -f https://files.viva64.com/rpm viva64 \
 && zypper update -y \
 && zypper install -y --no-recommends pvs-studio strace \
 && pvs-studio --version \
 && zypper clean -all

On yum-based systems:

FROM centos:7

# INSTALL DEPENDENCIES
RUN yum update -y -q \
 && yum install -y -q wget \
 && yum clean all -y -q

# INSTALL PVS-Studio
RUN wget -q -O /etc/yum.repos.d/viva64.repo \
 https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.repo \
 && yum install -y -q pvs-studio strace \
 && pvs-studio --version \
 && yum clean all -y -q

Note. PVS-Studio for Linux also can be acquired using following permalinks:

https://files.viva64.com/pvs-studio-latest.deb

https://files.viva64.com/pvs-studio-latest.tgz

https://files.viva64.com/pvs-studio-latest.rpm

Command to build an image:

docker build -t viva64/pvs-studio:7.11 -f Dockerfile

Note. A base image and dependencies must be changed according to the target project.

Running a container

To start the analysis, for example, of a CMake-based project, execute the following command:

docker run --rm -v "~/Project":"/mnt/Project" \
           -w "/mnt/Project" viva64/pvs-studio:7.11 \
           sh -c 'mkdir build && cd build &&
                  cmake -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=On .. && make -j8 &&
                  pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... -o report.log -j8 ...'

It is recommended that you run the converter of analyzer-generated reports (plog-converter) outside the container to ensure that reports contain correct paths to the source files. The only report type that you may want to generate inside the container is fullhtml (an HTML report file that supports message sorting and code navigation). To have other report types generated, you will need to additionally configure the analyzer.

When checking non-CMake projects in a container using the compiler call tracing mode, you may get this error:

strace: ptrace(PTRACE_TRACEME, ...): Operation not permitted
Error: Command strace returned 1 code.

To eliminate this error, run Docker with extended privileges by executing this command:

docker run ... --security-opt seccomp:unconfined ...

or like this:

docker run ... --cap-add SYS_PTRACE ...

Configuring the analyzer

Specifying the license file

Since a container's lifetime is limited, the analyzer license file should be committed into the image or specified by mounting the directory containing that file and specifying the path to it:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... -l /path/to/PVS-Studio.lic ...

Restoring paths to source files in the report

To get a report with correct paths to the source files, specify the path to the project directory first:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... -r /path/to/project/in/container ...

After that, run the report converter outside the container.

On Linux or macOS:

plog-converter ... -r /path/to/project/on/host ...

On Windows:

PlogConverter.exe ... -r /path/to/project/on/host

On Windows, you can also use the Compiler Monitoring UI utility to open the report file without converting it.

Excluding directories from analysis

You can exclude the compiler directory or directories with third-party libraries or tests by adding the -e parameter:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... -e /path/to/tests ... -e /path/to/contrib ...

Specifying the cross compiler

If your container includes a cross compiler or compiler without aliases (for example, g++-7), its name must be specified additionally:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... -C g++-7 -C compilerName ...

Linux Docker images for projects in Java

Creating an image

Installing from an archive

FROM openkbs/ubuntu-bionic-jdk-mvn-py3

ARG PVS_STUDIO_CORE="7.11.44138"

RUN wget "https://files.viva64.com/java/pvsstudio-cores/${PVS_STUDIO_CORE}.zip"\
-O ${PVS_STUDIO_CORE}.zip \
 && mkdir -p ~/.config/PVS-Studio-Java \
 && unzip ${PVS_STUDIO_CORE}.zip -d ~/.config/PVS-Studio-Java \
 && rm -rf ${PVS_STUDIO_CORE}.zip

Command to build an image:

docker build -t viva64/pvs-studio:7.11 -f Dockerfile

Committing the analyzer layer

The analyzer is unpacked automatically at the first analysis of a project. You can specify the container's name and perform the analysis first:

docker run --name analyzer
  -v "D:\Project":"/mnt/Project"
  openkbs/ubuntu-bionic-jdk-mvn-py3
  sh -c "cd /mnt/Project && mvn package
    && mvn pvsstudio:pvsAnalyze -Dpvsstudio.licensePath=/path/to/PVS-Studio.lic"

and then commit to a new image:

docker commit analyzer viva64/pvs-studio:7.11

Note. A base image and dependencies must be changed according to the target project. Make sure you install and launch the analyzer as the same user.

Running the container

Regular checks should be launched in the same way with the --rm parameter added:

docker run --rm -v "D:\Project":"/mnt/Project"
  openkbs/ubuntu-bionic-jdk-mvn-py3
  sh -c "cd /mnt/Project
    && mvn package
    && mvn pvsstudio:pvsAnalyze -Dpvsstudio.licensePath=/path/to/PVS-Studio.lic"

Configuring the analyzer

All of the parameters are specified in the Maven or Gradle project file, into which the analysis is integrated.

Windows Docker images for projects in C, C++, and C#

Documentation for this section is under development.

Windows Docker images for projects in Java

Documentation for this section is under development.

References

Running PVS-Studio in Jenkins

Automating the analyzer run
Plugin to visualize analysis results
Warnings Next Generation Plugin
Additional links

Automating the analyzer run

In order to automate the analysis process in CI (Continuous Integration) you have to run the analyzer as a console application.

In Jenkins you can create one of the following build steps:

Execute Windows batch command
Windows PowerShell
Execute shell

and write the analysis command (and the command to convert the report in the needed format).

Examples of commands to run and integrate the analyzer into build systems are given on the following pages of documentation:

Plugin to visualize analysis results

Download the PVS-Studio Plugin on the download page in the section about Jenkins. The pvs-studio.hpi file will be saved on the disk. Jenkins plugins are distributed in such packages for manual installation.

You can install the plugin via UI by going to the menu Manage Jenkins > Manage Plugin > Advanced > Upload Plugin > Choose File, or via Jenkins CLI:

java -jar jenkins-cli.jar -s http://localhost:8080/ install-plugin SOURCE ...

PVS-Studio Plugin enables publishing static analysis results. To do this, it uses the analyzer report as an .html file, formed in the following ways:

Windows: C, C++, C#

PlogConverter.exe ... --renderTypes Html ...

Linux/macOS: C, C++

plog-converter ... --renderTypes html ...

Windows/Linux/macOS: Java

In the settings of the plugins for Maven and Gradle in the outputType field set the html value.

To publish the analysis results in the project settings you have to add the post-build step (section Post-build Actions) Publish PVS-Studio analysis result. Mandatory field - Path to PVS-Studio analysis report, which sets the path to the .html file, the contents of which will be displayed on the build page. Relative (related to project's workspace) paths are supported. Jenkins' environment variables are also supported.

If you need to display combined results from several analyzer reports, you can combine them using the above converting utilities. Additional filtration of analysis results is available in a similar way.

After successful publishing of PVS-Studio analysis results, they will be displayed on build pages. The results of the analysis are saved for each build that allows you to view the analyzer report corresponding to a specific build.

If the resulting analyzer report is large, its preview will be displayed on the build page. The full report will be available for viewing by clicking the links View full report over / under the report preview, or Full PVS-Studio analysis report in the menu on the left.

Build page look, displaying the results of PVS-Studio analysis:

Warnings Next Generation Plugin

Warnings NG Plugin supports PVS-Studio analyzer reports, starting from the plugin version 6.0.0. This plugin is designed to visualize the results of various analyzers.

You can install the plugin from the standard Jenkins repository in the menu Manage Jenkins > Manage Plugins > Available > Warnings Next Generation Plugin:

To publish the analysis results, in project settings, you have to add the post-build step (Post-build Actions section) Record compiler warnings and static analysis results.. Next, you need to open the list Tool and choose PVS-Studio. In the Report File Pattern field you can specify the mask or the path to the analyzer report. Reports with extensions .plog and .xml.are supported.

The Report Encoding field specifies the encoding in which the report file will be read. If the field is empty, the encoding of the operation system in which Jenkins is run, will be used. Fields Custom ID and Custom Name override the identifier and the name of the chosen utility in the interface.

Here are some ways to generate a report in the needed format:

Windows: C, C++, C#

Reports with .plog extension are standard for Windows.

Linux/macOS: C, C++

plog-converter ... --renderTypes xml ...

Windows/Linux/macOS: Java

In the settings for plugin for Maven and Gradle in the outputType field set the value xml.

After building the project a new element will appear in the PVS-Studio Warnings menu on the left. Clicking on it opens a page that visualizes data of the report created by the PVS-Studio analyzer:

Also, when you click on the value in the File column, the browser will open a source file on the line where the error was found. If the file doesn't open, it means that the report was generated outside the build directory or the files involved in the report have been moved or deleted.

In other CIs, configuration of the analyzer run and handling reports are performed in the same way.

Additional links

Running PVS-Studio in TeamCity

Automating the analyzer run
Runner type: Command Line;
Viewing analysis results
- The first way
- The second way
Additional links

Automating the analyzer run

In order to automate the analysis process in CI (Continuous Integration), you need to run the analyzer as a console application.

You need to create a Build Step in TeamCity with the following parameters:

Runner type: Command Line;

Step Name: <name>;
Run: Custom script;
Custom script: <script>.

In the script, write the analysis command (and the command for converting the report in the needed format).

Examples of commands to run the analyzer, handle the analysis results and integrate the analyzer into build systems are given on the following pages of documentation:

Viewing analysis results

The first way

In TeamCity you can attach analyzer reports in the HTML format to builds, having specified them in the artifacts.

Here are some ways to generate an HTML report with navigation along the code:

Windows: C, C++, C#

PlogConverter.exe ... --renderTypes FullHtml ...

Linux/macOS: C, C++

plog-converter ... --renderTypes fullhtml ...

Windows/Linux/macOS: Java

In the plugins settings for Maven and Gradle in the 'outputType' field set the 'fullhtml' value.

In the menu Edit Configuration Settings > General Settings > Artifact paths specify the directory with the resulting HTML-report.

After the build is completed successfully, the analyzer report in html format will be available in artifacts. To open it, click on the file index.html on the 'Artifacts' tab. You can also make the analyzer report appear on a special tab of the build session report. To do this, go to the project settings, open 'Report Tabs' and create new build report tab.

In the window for adding a tab, specify the path to the index.html file in the 'Start page' field relative to the root directory of artifacts. For example, if the content of the 'Artifacts' tab looks something like this:

Then write the path 'fullhtml/index.html' in the 'Start Page' field. After you add a tab, you can view the analysis results on it:

When clicking analyzer warnings, additional browser tabs will be opening:

In other CIs, configuration of analyzer runs and working with reports are performed in the same way.

The second way

The converter supports standard reports for TeamCity - TeamCity Inspections Type. After generation a report it has to be output in stdout at any step of the build.

Such report can be generated and output in stdout in the following ways:

Windows: C, C++, C#

PlogConverter.exe ... –-renderTypes=TeamCity -o TCLogsDir ...
Type TCLogsDir\MyProject.plog_TeamCity.txt

Linux/macOS: C, C++

plog-converter ... -t teamcity -o report_tc.txt ...
cat report_tc.txt

Windows/Linux/macOS: Java

Support will be available soon.

After successful build execution the analyser report will appear in a new tab with the information on this build:

In order to navigate along the code you can click the line number on the left of the diagnostic rule. The transition will occur if there is an absolute path to the source file, the open project in an IDE (Eclipse, Visual Studio, IntelliJ IDEA), and the installed TeamCity plugin.

Additional links

Notifying the developer teams (blame-notifier utility)

Installation
Usage

The blame-notifier utility is available only if you have an Enterprise license. To order the license, please, write to us.

Note. The utility's name differs under different platforms. Under Windows it has the name BlameNotifier.exe, under Linux and macOS - blame-notifier. If we aren't talking about the utility for a specific OS, the name "blame-notifier" is used to avoid duplication in this document.

The blame-notifier utility on Linux and macOS requires .NET Core Runtime 3.1.

Installation

On Windows

The BlameNotifier utility can be found in the PVS-Studio installation directory ("C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\" by default).

On Linux

Installation from repositories

For debian-based systems:

wget -q -O - https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt | \
  sudo apt-key add -
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/viva64.list \
  https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install blame-notifier

For yum-based systems:

wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/viva64.repo \
  https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.repo
yum update
yum install blame-notifier

For zypper-based systems:

wget -q -O /tmp/viva64.key https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt
sudo rpm --import /tmp/viva64.key
sudo zypper ar -f https://files.viva64.com/rpm viva64
sudo zypper update
sudo zypper install blame-notifier

Direct links to download

blame-notifier.deb

blame-notifier.rpm

blame-notifier.tar.gz

On macOS

Installation from Homebrew

Installation:

brew install viva64/pvs-studio/blame-notifier

Update:

brew upgrade blame-notifier

Direct links to download

blame-notifier-macos.tar.gz

Usage

Use the "--help" flag to display basic information about the utility:

blame-notifier --help

An example of using the blame-notifier utility (in one line):

blame-notifier path/to/PVS-Studio.log 
--VCS Git 
--recipientsList recipients.txt 
--server ... --sender ... --login ... --password ...

Utility options

Here's a quick description of the utility's parameters:

--VCS (or -v): required parameter: a type of version control system that the utility will be working with. Supported systems: Git, Svn, Mercurial, Perforce.
--recipientsList (or -r): the path to the text file, containing the list of report recipients. The file format is described below.
--srcRoot (or -t): sets up a replacement for a special "SourceTreeRoot" marker. If the analyzer's log was generated with this marker, this parameter is needed to restore the paths to files.
--analyzer (or -a): filters warnings according to the mask. More details about the filtration masks are given below.
--excludedCodes (or -e): sets up the list of warnings (separated with ",") that shouldn't be included in the resulting report.
--settings (or -c): sets the path to the PVS-Studio settings file. This flag is relevant only when working on Windows. BlameNotifier will read settings of disabled warnings from the passed settings file. In fact, this parameter expands the list of disabled warnings of the parameter "--excludedCodes".
--server (or -x): required parameter: SMTP server for mail sending.
--sender (or -s): required parameter: sender's email address.
--login (or -l): required parameter: username for authorization.
--password (or -w): password for authorization.
--port (or -p): mail delivery port (25 by default).
--maxTasks (or -m): the maximum number of concurrently running blame-processes. By default, or if a negative number is set, blame-notifier will use 2* N processes (where N is the number of CPU cores).
--progress (or -g): turn loggings on/off. Off by default.
--enableSSL: enable SSL protocol. Off by default.
--vcsBasedRecipientsList: automatically retrieve a list of recipients from the specified VCS. This flag is available for the following VCSs: Perforce. Off by default.

When using the utility, at least one of the flags, via which the list of reports recipients is set, has to be specified: '--recipientsList' or '--vcsBasedRecipientsList'.

If necessary, these flags can be used jointly.

Report recipients file format

File format with a list of report recipients:

# Recipients of the full report
username_1 *email_1
...
username_N *email_N
# Recipients of individually assigned warnings 
username_1 email_1
...
username_N email_N

You can comment on the line with the symbol "#". For full report recipients, you need to add the "*" symbol at the beginning or end of an email address. The full report will include all warnings sorted by developers.

Format of masks filtration

The filtering masks look like this: MessageType:MessageLevels.

"MessageType" can take one of the following values: GA, OP, 64, CS, MISRA, Fail.

"MessageLevels" can take a value of 1 to 3.

A combination of different masks through ";" is possible (without spaces), for example:

--analyzer=GA:1,2;64:1

In this case, general-analysis warnings (GA) of 1 and 2 levels, and 64-bit warnings of the 1 level will be handled.

PVS-Studio and Continuous Integration

How to use static analysis most efficiently
Preparing for CI
Integrating PVS-Studio into the CI process
Analyzing the source code of MSBuild / Visual Studio projects
Analyzing projects that use uncommon build systems
- Compiler monitoring system
- Direct integration into build automation systems
Handling analysis results
Sending analysis results via email with help BlameNotifier
Conclusion

This article discusses integration of PVS-Studio into the continuous integration process on Windows. Integration into the CI process on Linux is discussed in the article "How to run PVS-Studio on Linux".

How to use static analysis most efficiently

Before talking on the subject of this article, it would be useful for you to know that running PVS-Studio solely on the build server is effective yet inefficient. A better solution is to build a system that could perform source code analysis at two levels: locally on the developers' machines and on the build server.

This concept stems from the fact that the earlier a defect is detected, the less expensive and difficult it is to fix. For that reason, you want to find and fix bugs as soon as possible, and running PVS-Studio on the developers' machines makes this easier. We recommend using the incremental analysis mode, which allows you to have analysis automatically initiated only for recently modified code after the build.

However, this solution does not guarantee that defects will never get to the version control system. It is to track such cases that the second security level - regular static analysis on the build server - is needed. Even if a bug does slip in, it will be caught and fixed in time. With the analysis integrated into night builds, you will get a morning report about the errors made the day before and be able to fix the faulty code quickly.

Note. It is not recommended to have the analyzer check every commit on the server, as the analysis process may take quite a long time. If you do need to use it in this way and your project is built with MSBuild build system, use the incremental analysis mode of command line module 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe'. For details about this mode, see the section "Incremental analysis in command line module 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe'" of this paper. You can also use utility 'CLMonitor.exe' (for C and C++ code only) to analyze your source files in this mode (regardless of the build system). To learn more about the use of 'CLMonitor.exe' utility, see the section "Compiler monitoring system" of this paper.

Preparing for CI

Preparing for integration of PVS-Studio into the CI process is an important phase that will help you save time in the future and use static analysis more efficiently. This section discusses the specifics of PVS-Studio customization that will make further work easier.

Unattended deployment of PVS-Studio

You need administrator privileges to install PVS-Studio. Unattended installation is performed by running the following command from the command line (in one line):

PVS-Studio_setup.exe /verysilent /suppressmsgboxes 
/norestart /nocloseapplications

Executing this command will initiate installation of all available PVS-Studio components. Please note that PVS-Studio may require a restart to complete installation if, for example, the files being updated are locked. If you run the installer without the 'NORESTART' flag, it may restart the computer without any prior notification or dialogue.

The package includes utility 'PVS-Studio-Updater.exe', which checks for analyzer updates. If there are updates available, it will download and install them on local machine. To run the utility in 'silent' mode, use the same options as with installation:

PVS-Studio-Updater.exe /verysilent /suppressmsgboxes

Settings file is generated automatically when running the Visual Studio with installed PVS-Studio plugin or running C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI (Standalone.exe), and it can then be edited or copied to other machines. The information about the license is also stored in the settings file. The default directory of this file is:

%AppData%\PVS-Studio\Settings.xml

To learn more about unattended deployment of PVS-Studio, see the article "Unattended deployment of PVS-Studio".

Preliminary configuration of the analyzer

Before running the analyzer, you need to configure it to optimize handling of the warning list and (if possible) speed up the analysis process.

Note. The options discussed below can be changed by manually editing the settings file or through the settings page's interface of the Visual Studio plug-in or Compiler Monitoring UI.

It may often be helpful to exclude certain files or even entire directories from analysis - this will allow you to keep the code of third party libraries unchecked, thus reducing the overall analysis time and ensuring that you will get only warnings relevant to your project. The analyzer is already configured by default to ignore some files and paths such as the boost library. To learn more about excluding files from analysis, see the article "Settings: Don't Check Files".

At the phase of analyzer integration, you also want to turn off those PVS-Studio diagnostics that are irrelevant to the current project. Diagnostics can be disabled both individually and in groups. If you know which diagnostics are irrelevant, turn them off right away to speed up the check. Otherwise, you can turn them off later. To learn more about disabling diagnostic rules, see the article "Settings: Detectable Errors".

Suppression of the warnings related to the old code

When integrating static analysis into an existing project with a large codebase, the first check may reveal multiple defects in its source code. The developer team may lack the resources required for fixing all such warnings, and then you need to hide all the warnings triggered by the existing code so that only warnings triggered by newly written/modified code are displayed.

To do this, use the mass warning suppression mechanism, described in detail in the article "Mass Suppression of Analyzer Messages".

Note 1. If you need to hide only single warnings, use the false positive suppression mechanism described in the article "Suppression of false alarms".

Note 2. Using SonarQube, you can specify how warnings issued within a certain period are displayed. You can use this feature to have the analyzer display only those warnings that were triggered after the integration (that is, turn off the warnings triggered by old code).

Integrating PVS-Studio into the CI process

Integrating PVS-Studio into the CI process is relatively easy. In addition, it provides means for convenient handling of analysis results.

Integration of PVS-Studio with the SonarQube platform is possible only if you own an Enterprise license. You can order one by emailing us.

The principles of analysis of the projects, based on different build systems will be described below, as well as the utilities for working with the results of analysis.

Analyzing the source code of MSBuild / Visual Studio projects

This section discusses the most effective way of analyzing MSBuild / Visual Studio solutions and projects, i.e. Visual Studio solutions (.sln) and Visual C++ (.vcxproj) and Visual C# (.csproj) projects.

General information

Project types listed above can be analyzed from the command line by running the 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe' module, located in PVS-Studio's installation directory. The default location is 'C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\'.

You can modify analysis parameters by passing various arguments to 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe'. To view the list of all available arguments, enter the following command:

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe --help

The analyzer has one obligatory argument, '--target', which is used to specify the target object for analysis (a .sln, .vcxproj, or .csproj file). The other arguments are optional; they are discussed in detail in the article "Analyzing Visual C++ (.vcxproj) and Visual C# (.csproj) projects from the command line".

The following example demonstrates how to start analysis of a .sln file (in one line):

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe --target "targetsolution.sln" --platform "Any CPU" 
--output "results.plog" --configuration "Release"

Executing this command will initiate analysis of .sln file 'targetsolution.sln' for platform 'Any CPU' in 'Release' configuration. The output file ('results.plog') will be created in the directory of the solution under analysis. The check will be performed with the standard analyzer settings since no specific settings have been specified.

The 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe' module employs a number of non-zero exit codes, which it uses to report the final analysis status. An exit code is a bit mask representing all states that occurred while the utility was running. In other words, a non-zero exit code does not necessarily indicate an error in the utility's operation. For a detailed description of exit codes, see the above-mentioned article "Analyzing Visual C++ (.vcxproj) and Visual C# (.csproj) projects from the command line".

Displaying analysis results only for newly written / modified code

If you use the analyzer regularly, you may want it to issue warnings triggered only by newly written/modified code. With night builds on the build server, this would allow you to view only those warnings that were triggered by mistakes made on the previous day.

To turn on this mode, run the 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe' module with the command line argument '--suppressAll'. When this flag is present, the utility will add all the messages to the database of suppressed warnings (.suppress files of the corresponding projects) after saving the analysis results. This will prevent those messages from appearing at the next check. In case you need to view the old warnings again, the complete analysis log can be found in the same directory where the .plog file with new messages is located.

To learn more about the mass warning suppression mechanism, see the article "Mass Suppression of Analyzer Messages".

Note. When using the SonarQube platform, you can keep track of new messages without applying the suppression mechanisms. To do this, configure it to display changes only for the past day.

Incremental analysis in command line module 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe'

PVS-Studio's incremental analysis mode allows you to check only those files that have been modified/affected since the last build. This mode is available in both the Visual Studio plug-in and the command line module. With incremental analysis, only warnings triggered by modified code will be displayed, thus reducing the analysis time by excluding unaffected parts of the solution from analysis.

This mode is useful when your continuous integration system is configured to run an automatic incremental build every time changes in the version control system are detected; that is, when the project is built and analyzed on the build server many times during the day.

The use of incremental analysis in the 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe' module is controlled by the flag '--incremental'. The following modes are available here:

Scan - analyze dependencies to determine which files must be included into incremental analysis. The analysis process itself is not initiated.
Analyze - run incremental analysis. This step must be performed after the Scan step and can be performed both before and after building the solution/project. Only those files that have changed since the last build will be analyzed.
ScanAndAnalyze - analyze dependencies to determine which files must be included into incremental analysis, and immediately start incremental analysis.

To learn more about PVS-Studio's incremental analysis, see the article "PVS-Studio's incremental analysis mode".

Note. There are a few details to keep in mind about this mode. Specifically, you could encounter a file locking issue when PVS-Studio uses Visual C++'s preprocessor ('cl.exe'). It has to do with the fact that the 'cl.exe' compiler may lock a file while preprocessing it, causing writing of this file to fail. When the Clang preprocessor is used, this issue is much rarer. Please keep this in mind when configuring the server to run incremental analysis rather than full-fledged analysis at night.

Analysis of CMake projects

If you need to analyze CMake projects, it is recommended that you convert them into Visual Studio solutions and continue to work with these. This will allow you to use the 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe' module's capabilities in full.

Analyzing projects that use uncommon build systems

If your project uses a build system other than MSBuild, you will not be able to analyze it with the command line module 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe'. The package, however, includes utilities to make it possible to analyze such projects too.

Compiler monitoring system

The PVS-Studio Compiler Monitoring system, or CLMonitoring, is designed to provide 'seamless' integration of PVS-Studio into any build system under Windows that employs one of the preprocessors supported by the command line module 'PVS-Studio.exe' for compilation.

The monitoring server (CLMonitor.exe) monitors the launches of processes corresponding to the target compiler and collects information about these processes' environment. The server monitors only those processes that run under the same user profile where it has been launched.

Supported compilers:

Microsoft Visual C++ compilers (cl.exe);
C/C++ compilers of the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc.exe, g++.exe);
Clang compiler (clang.exe) and Clang-based compilers.

Before integrating the monitoring server into the build process, start the 'CLMonitor.exe' module with the argument 'monitor':

CLMonitor.exe monitor

This command will tell the monitoring server to call itself in monitoring mode and terminate, while the build system will be able to continue with its tasks. Meanwhile, the second CLMonitor process (called by the first) will be still running and monitoring the build process.

Once the build is complete, you will need to launch the 'CLMonitor.exe' module in client mode to generate preprocessed files and start static analysis proper:

CLMonitor.exe analyze -l "c:\ptest.plog" -u "c:\ptest.suppress" -s

This command contains the following arguments:

analyze - run the 'CLMonitor.exe' module for analysis;
-l - full path to the file the analysis results will be saved to;
-u - path to suppress file;
-s - append all new messages of the current check to the suppress file.

To learn more about the use of the compiler monitoring system, see the article "Compiler Monitoring System in PVS-Studio".

Note. The compiler monitoring system has a number of drawbacks stemming from the natural limitations of this approach, namely the impossibility to guarantee a 100% intercept of all the compiler launches during the build process (for example, when the system is heavily loaded). Another thing to remember is that when several build processes are running in parallel, the system may intercept compiler launches related to another build.

Direct integration into build automation systems

Note. In direct integration mode, the analyzer can check only C/C++ code.

Direct integration may be necessary when you cannot use the command line module 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe' (since the project is built with a system other than MSBuild) and the compiler monitoring system (see the note in the corresponding section).

In that case, you need to integrate a direct call of the analyzer ('PVS-Studio.exe') into the build process and provide it with all the arguments required for preprocessing. That is, the analyzer must be called for the same files that the compiler is called for.

To learn more about direct integration into build automation systems, see the article "Direct integration of the analyzer into build automation systems (C/C++)".

Handling analysis results

Once the check has finished, the analyzer outputs a .plog file in the XML format. This file is not intended to be handled manually (read by the programmer). The package, however, includes special utilities whose purpose is to provide a convenient way to handle the .plog file.

Preliminary filtering of analysis results

The analysis results can be filtered even before a start of the analysis by using the No Noise setting. When working on a large code base, the analyzer inevitably generates a large number of warning messages. Besides, it is often impossible to fix all the warnings straight out. Therefore, to concentrate on fixing the most important warnings first, the analysis can be made less "noisy" by using this option. It allows completely disabling the generation of Low Certainty (level 3) warnings. After restarting the analysis, the messages from this level will disappear from the analyzer's output.

When circumstances will allow it, and all of the more important messages are fixed, the 'No Noise' mode can be switched off - all of the messages that disappeared before will be available again.

To enable this setting use the Specific Analyzer Settings page.

PlogConverter

'PlogConverter.exe' is used to convert the analyzer report into one of the formats that could be read by the programmer:

text file with analysis results. It may be convenient when you want the analysis results (for example, new diagnostic messages) output into the log of the build system or CI server;
HTML report with a short description of the analysis results. It suits best for the e-mailing of the notifications;
HTML report with sorting of the analysis results according to the different parameters and navigation along the source code;
CSV table with analysis results;
Tasks file to be viewed in QtCreator;
text file with a summary table showing the number of messages across severity levels and groups of diagnostics.

This example demonstrates how to use 'PlogConverter.exe' utility (in one line):

PlogConverter.exe test1.plog -o "C:\Results" -r "C:\Test" 
-a GA:1 -t Html

This command converts the 'test1.plog' file into an .html file that will include the first-level diagnostic messages of the GA (general-analysis) group. The resulting report will be written to 'C:\Results', while the original .plog file will stay unchanged.

To see full help on 'PlogConverter' utility's parameters, run the following command:

PlogConverter.exe --help

Note. 'PlogConverter' utility comes with the source files (in C#), which can be found in the archive 'PlogConverter_src.zip'. You can adopt the algorithm of parsing a .plog file's structure to create your own output format.

To learn more about 'PlogConverter', see the article "Managing the Analysis Results (.plog file)".

SonarQube

Analysis results can be imported into the SonarQube platform, which performs continuous code quality inspection. To do this, use the 'sonar-pvs-studio-plugin' included into the package. This plugin allows you to add warnings issued by PVS-Studio to the SonarQube server's message database. This, in its turn, enables you to view bug occurrence/fixing statistics, navigate the warnings, view the documentation on diagnostic rules, and so forth.

Once added to SonarQube, all PVS-Studio messages are assigned type Bug. SonarQube's interface keeps the same layout of message distribution across diagnostic groups as in the analyzer.

To learn more about integrating analysis results into SonarQube, see the article "Integration of PVS-Studio analysis results into SonarQube".

Sending analysis results via email with help BlameNotifier

Sending analysis report copies to developers is an effective way to inform them about the results. It can be done with the help of special utilities such as SendEmail. SonarQube provides this option as well.

Another way to inform the developers is to use 'BlameNotifier' utility, which also comes with the PVS-Studio package. This application allows you to form reports in a flexible way. For example, you can configure it so that it will send individual reports to the developers who submitted faulty code; team leaders, development managers, etc. will get a complete log with the data about all the errors found and developers responsible for them.

For basic information about the utility, run the following command:

BlameNotifier.exe --help

To learn more about 'BlameNotifier', see the article "Managing the Analysis Results (.plog file)", section "Notifying the developer team".

Conclusion

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at support@viva64.com.

Incremental Analysis Mode in PVS-Studio

Windows: C, C++, C#
Linux/macOS: C, C++
Linux/macOS: C#
Windows/Linux/macOS: Java
References

Server incremental analysis mode from command line is available only under Enterprise PVS-Studio license. You can request a trial Enterprise license at the download page. IDE incremental analysis on developer's machine is available under all PVS-Studio license types.

It is possible to run analysis on the entire code base independently – say, once a day during night builds. However, to get the most out of the analyzer, you need to be able to find and fix bugs as early as possible. In other words, the optimal way to use a static analyzer is to run it on freshly written code right away. Of course, having to manually run a check every time you modify a few files and wait for it to finish makes this scenario complicated and incompatible with the idea of intense development and debugging of new code. It's simply inconvenient, after all. However, PVS-Studio has a solution to this problem.

Note that it is advisable to examine all the diagnostic messages generated after the very first full analysis of the code base, and fix any bugs found. As for the remaining warnings, you can either mark them as false positives, turn off irrelevant diagnostics or diagnostic sets, or suppress whatever messages you haven't addressed to get back to them some other time. This approach allows you to keep the warning list uncluttered by meaningless and irrelevant warnings.

Windows: C, C++, C#

Microsoft Visual Studio

To enable the post-build incremental analysis mode, click Extensions > PVS-Studio > Analysis after Build (Modified Files Only):

This option is enabled by default.

Once this mode is activated, PVS-Studio will automatically analyze all recently modified files in the background immediately after the build is finished. When the analysis starts, an animated PVS-Studio icon will appear in the Windows taskbar notification area:

The drop-down menu from the notification area includes commands that allow you to pause or abort the current check.

To keep track of modified files, the analyzer relies on the build system. A complete rebuild will cause it to check all the files comprising the project, so you need to use incremental build to be able to check only modified files. If any bugs are detected during incremental analysis, their number will be displayed on the tab of the PVS-Studio window in Visual Studio, and Windows notification will pop-up:

Clicking on the icon in the notification area (or on the notification itself) will take you to the PVS-Studio Output window.

When working within Visual Studio, you can set an incremental analysis timeout or the maximum level of analyzer warnings. These settings can be tweaked in PVS-Studio > Options > Specific Analyzer Settings > IncrementalAnalysisTimeout and PVS-Studio > Options > Special Analyzer Settings > IncrementalResultsDisplayDepth.

Command-line analyzer for MSBuild projects (PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe)

The incremental analysis mode can also be used with Visual Studio solutions when using the command-line utility (PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe). This practice is good for speeding up analysis on the CI server and employs incremental build approaches similar to those used in MSBuild.

To set up incremental analysis on the server, use the following commands:

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe ... --incremental Scan ...
MSBuild.exe ... -t:Build ...
PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe ... --incremental Analyze ...

Here's a complete description of all the modes of incremental analysis:

Scan – scan all dependencies to determine which files need to be analyzed. No actual check will be run. This step must be performed before building a solution or project. The scan results will be saved to temporary.pvs-studio directories, located in the same directories where the project files are stored. Only changes made since the last build will be taken into account; all earlier change history stored in the .pvs-studio directory will be erased.
AppendScan – scan all dependencies to determine which files need to be analyzed. No actual check will be run. This step must be performed before building a solution or project. The scan results will be saved to temporary.pvs-studio directories located in the same directories where the project files are stored. All changes made since the last build and all earlier changes will be taken into account.
Analyze – run incremental analysis. This step must follow the Scan or AppendScan step and can be performed either before or after building a solution or project. Only the files on the list generated at the Scan or AppendScan step will be analyzed. If the 'Remove Intermediate Files' option of PVS-Studio's settings is set to True, the temporary .pvs-studio directories created at the scan step will be removed at the end of the check.
ScanAndAnalyze – scan all dependencies to determine which files need to be analyzed and run incremental analysis on the modified source files immediately. This step must be performed before building a solution or project. Only changes made since the last build will be taken into account.

Compiler Monitoring UI

If you need to use incremental analysis along with the compiler monitoring system, you simply need to "trace" the incremental build, i.e. the compilation of files modified since the previous build. This way, you will be able to analyze only modified or new code.

This scenario is natural to the compiler monitoring system, as it is based on the tracing of compiler invocations during the build process, and, thus, collects all the information needed to analyze the source files the compilation of which has been traced. Therefore, which type of analysis will be performed depends on which type of build is being traced: full or incremental.

To learn more about the compiler monitoring system, see the article "Compiler Monitoring System in PVS-Studio".

Linux/macOS: C, C++

CMake projects

To check a CMake project, you can use a JSON Compilation Database file. To have the required compile_commands.json file generated, add the following flag to the CMake call:

cmake -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=On <src-tree-root>

To enable incremental analysis for such projects, add the --incremental flag to the analyze command:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... --incremental ...

File dependencies and modification history will be stored in the .PVS-Studio directory as the analyzer's work does not depend on the build system in this mode. This directory must be preserved for the analyzer to be able to work in this analysis mode.

If your CMake generator doesn't allow generating a compile_commands.json file, or if this file can't be generated conveniently, you may directly integrate PVS-Studio into CMake: using the direct integration module will allow you to run incremental analysis along with incremental build.

Makefile projects

You can specify an analyzer invocation command after the compiler command in the scripts of the Make build system or other similar systems:

$(CXX) $(CFLAGS) $< ...
pvs-studio --source-file $< ...

This will let incremental analysis and incremental build run together, with the information about modified files retrieved from the build system.

A collection of examples demonstrating the integration of PVS-Studio into Makefile can be found in the GitHub repository: pvs-studio-makefile-examples.

Other projects (Linux only)

You can check any project without integrating the analyzer into a build system by running the following commands:

pvs-studio-analyzer trace – make
pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ...

Any build command with all the necessary parameters can be substituted instead of make.

In this mode, the analyzer traces and logs child processes of the build system and spots compilation processes among them. If you build the project in incremental build mode, only modified files will be analyzed as well.

Linux/macOS: C#

The incremental analysis mode of C# projects under Linux and macOS is the same as the one described above in the section "Command line analyzer for MSBuild projects (PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe)" except for the following:

'pvs-studio-dotnet' is used instead of 'PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe';
'dotnet' is used for the build, not 'MSBuild.exe'.

Windows/Linux/macOS: Java

IntelliJ IDEA

To turn on the post-build incremental analysis mode, click Analyze > PVS-Studio > Settings > PVS-Studio > Misc > Run incremental analysis on every build:

Once this mode is activated, PVS-Studio will automatically analyze all recently modified files in the background immediately after the build is finished. All issued warnings will be collected in the PVS-Studio window:

Maven Plugin

To enable incremental analysis in the maven plugin, set the incremental flag:

<plugin>
  <groupId>com.pvsstudio</groupId>
  <artifactId>pvsstudio-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  ....
  <configuration>
    <analyzer>
       ....
       <incremental>true</incremental>
       ....
    </analyzer>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

Once this mode is activated, the pvsstudio:pvsAnalyze command will start the analysis of only those files that have been modified since the last check.

Gradle Plugin

To enable incremental analysis in the gradle plugin, set the incremental flag:

apply plugin: com.pvsstudio.PvsStudioGradlePlugin
pvsstudio {
  ....
  incremental = true
  ....
}

Once this mode is activated, the pvsAnalyze command will start the analysis of only those files that have been modified since the last check.

References

Integrating PVS-Studio Analysis Results into SonarQube

System requirements
PVS-Studio plugins and how to install them
Creating and setting up a Quality Profile
Code analysis and importing results into SonarQube
For software security specialists
Additional features of the PVS-Studio plugin
- Sorting warnings by groups
- Viewing code metrics
Customizing the analyzer before analysis
Automatic updates of PVS-Studio plugins
Recommendations and limitations

SonarQube is an open-source platform developed by SonarSource for continuous inspection of code quality to perform automatic reviews with static analysis of code to detect bugs, code smells, and security vulnerabilities on 20+ programming languages. SonarQube offers reports on duplicated code, coding standards, unit tests, code coverage, code complexity, comments, bugs, and security vulnerabilities. SonarQube can record metrics history and provides evolution graphs.

This page showcases SonarQube's capabilities: sonarqube.org.

To import analysis results into SonarQube, PVS-Studio provides a special plugin, which allows you to add messages produced by PVS-Studio to the message base of the SonarQube server. SonarQube's Web interface allows you to filter the messages, navigate the code to examine bugs, assign tasks to developers and keep track of the progress, analyze bug amount dynamics, and measure the code quality of your projects.

System requirements

Operating system: Windows, Linux, macOS;
Java 8 or higher;
SonarQube 6.7 LTS or higher;
PVS-Studio analyzer;
PVS-Studio Enterprise-license.

PVS-Studio plugins and how to install them

The following plugins for SonarQube are available for PVS-Studio users:

sonar-pvs-studio-plugin.jar - a plugin which allows importing PVS-Studio analysis results into a project on the SonarQube server;
sonar-pvs-studio-lang-plugin.jar - a plugin which allows creating a quality profile for the C/C++/C# languages. This plugin is provided for compatibility of PVS-Studio plugins when moving from older versions of SonarQube to newer ones. This plugin allows you to keep the metrics/statistics obtained earlier and will probably be discarded in future releases. When creating a new project, use a profile with one of the standard languages (C++, C#, Java).

The guide on installing and starting the SonarQube server can be found on the page Installing the Server.

Once the SonarQube server is installed, copy the plugin (sonar-pvs-studio-plugin.jar) to this directory:

SONARQUBE_HOME/extensions/plugins

Depending on what language the analysis results refer to, install the corresponding plugins from the list below (some of them may be installed by default, depending on the SonarQube edition in use):

SonarC++ plugin (GitHub)
SonarC plugin (GitHub)
SonarC# plugin (Marketplace)
SonarJava plugin (Marketplace)
SonarCFamily (SQ Developer Edition)

Restart the SonarQube server.

Creating and setting up a Quality Profile

A Quality Profile is a collection of diagnostic rules to apply during an analysis. You can include PVS-Studio diagnostics into existing profiles or create a new profile. Every profile is bound to a particular programming language, but you can create several profiles with different rule sets. The ability to perform any action on quality profiles is granted to members of the sonar-administrators group.

A new profile is created using the menu command Quality Profiles -> Create:

To include PVS-Studio diagnostics into the active profile, select the desired repository through Rules -> Repository:

After that, click on the Bulk Change button to add all of the diagnostics to your profile, or select the desired diagnostics manually.

Diagnostics activation window:

You can also filter diagnostics by tags before selecting them for your profile:

After creating/tweaking your profiles, set one of them as the default profile:

The default profile is started automatically for source files written in the specified language. You don't necessarily have to group your profiles based on the utilities used. You can create a single profile for your project and add diagnostics from different utilities to it.

When a new PVS-Studio version releases, new diagnostics may appear, so you will have to update the plugin on the SonarQube server and add the new rules to the Quality Profile that uses PVS-Studio diagnostics. One of the sections below describes how to set up automatic updates.

Code analysis and importing results into SonarQube

Analysis results can be imported into SonarQube using the SonarQube Scanner utility. It requires a configuration file named sonar-project.properties and stored in the project's root directory. This file contains analysis parameters for the current project, and you can pass all or some of these settings as launch parameters of the SonarQube Scanner utility.

Below we will discuss the standard scanner launch scenarios for importing PVS-Studio analysis results into SonarQube on different platforms. SonarQube Scanner will automatically pick up the configuration file sonar-project.properties in the current launch directory.

Windows: C, C++, C#

MSBuild projects are checked with the PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe utility.

Option 1

By launching the PVS-Studio_Cmd once, you can get both an analysis report and the configuration file sonar-project.properties:

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe ... -o Project.plog --sonarqubedata ...

This is what the scanner launch command looks like:

sonar-scanner.bat ^
  -Dsonar.projectKey=ProjectKey ^
  -Dsonar.projectName=ProjectName ^
  -Dsonar.projectVersion=1.0 ^
  -Dsonar.pvs-studio.reportPath=Project.plog

Option 2

If you're using SonarQube Scanner for MSBuild, then use the following commands to analyze the project and upload the results in SonarQube:

SonarScanner.MSBuild.exe begin ... /d:sonar.pvs-studio.reportPath=Project.plog
MSBuild.exe Project.sln /t:Rebuild ...
PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe -t Project.sln ... -o Project.plog
SonarScanner.MSBuild.exe end

Windows, Linux, macOS: Java

Add the following lines to the Java project under analysis (depending on the project type):

Maven

<outputType>xml</outputType>
<outputFile>output.xml</outputFile>
<sonarQubeData>sonar-project.properties</sonarQubeData>

Gradle

outputType = 'xml'
outputFile = 'output.xml'
sonarQubeData='sonar-project.properties'

Just like in the previous case, the configuration file will be created automatically once the Java analyzer has finished the check.

The scanner launch command will look like this:

sonar-scanner.bat ^
  -Dsonar.projectKey=ProjectKey ^
  -Dsonar.projectName=ProjectName ^
  -Dsonar.projectVersion=1.0 ^
  -Dsonar.pvs-studio.reportPath=output.xml

Linux, macOS: C, C++

For a project, you will have to create the configuration file manually after the analysis. As an example, it may include the following parameters:

sonar.projectKey=my:project
sonar.projectName=My project
sonar.projectVersion=1.0
sonar.pvs-studio.reportPath=report.xml
sonar.sources=.

This is what the converter and scanner launch commands look like:

plog-converter ... -t xml - o report.xml ...
sonar-scanner.sh \
  -Dsonar.projectKey=ProjectKey \
  -Dsonar.projectName=ProjectName \
  -Dsonar.projectVersion=1.0 \
  -Dsonar.pvs-studio.reportPath=report.xml

sonar-project.properties

To fine-tune the analysis further, you can compose the configuration file manually from the following settings (or edit the automatically created file when checking MSBuild and Java projects):

sonar.pvs-studio.reportPath - path to the analyzer report in the .plog (for MSBuild projects) or .xml format;
sonar.pvs-studio.licensePath - path to the PVS-Studio license file (when checking an MSBuild project, you can pass this parameter using sonar.pvs-studio.settingsPath);
sonar.pvs-studio.sourceTreeRoot - path to the project directory on the current computer for cases when the report was generated on another computer, Docker container, etc. This parameter enables you to pass reports containing relative paths to sonar.pvs-studio.reportPath (when checking an MSBuild project, you can pass this parameter using sonar.pvs-studio.settingsPath);
sonar.pvs-studio.settingsPath - path to the Settings.xml file for MSBuild projects checked on Windows. This file already contains information about licencePath and sourceTreeRoot, so you don't have to specify them explicitly;
sonar.pvs-studio.cwe - specifies if CWE IDs are added to analyzer warnings. This option is off by default. Use the value active to enable;
sonar.pvs-studio.misra - specifies if MISRA IDs are added to analyzer warnings. This option is off by default. Use the value active to enable;
sonar.pvs-studio.language - activates the C/C++/C# language plugin. This option is off by default. Use the value active to turn it on. Enable this option if you are using a profile with the C/C++/C# languages added through a separate PVS-Studio plugin. This plugin is provided for compatibility of PVS-Studio plugins when moving from older versions of SonarQube to newer ones. It allows you to keep the metrics/statistics obtained earlier and will probably be discarded in future releases.

The other standard scanner configuration parameters are described in the general documentation on SonarQube.

Multi-module Project

When subproject directories are located at different levels, it becomes impossible to upload the results of several subprojects to SonarQube in one project with standard settings. This is because this sub-project structure requires additional adjustment of the indexer in the SonarScanner utility.

You can set up such a project correctly by using modules where each module is configured for one subproject:

sonar.projectKey=org.mycompany.myproject
sonar.projectName=My Project
sonar.projectVersion=1.0
sonar.sources=src

sonar.modules=module1,module2

module1.sonar.projectName=Module 1
module1.sonar.projectBaseDir=modules/mod1

module2.sonar.projectName=Module 2
module2.sonar.projectBaseDir=modules/mod2

There are two ways to specify the path to the PVS-Studio analysis file.

The first way

Specify different reports for modules:

....
sonar.modules=module1,module2

module1.sonar.projectName=Module 1
module1.sonar.projectBaseDir=modules/mod1
module1.sonar.pvs-studio.reportPath=/path/to/report1.plog

module2.sonar.projectName=Module 2
module2.sonar.projectBaseDir=modules/mod2
module2.sonar.pvs-studio.reportPath=/path/to/report2.plog

The second way

Specify one report at the project level:

sonar.projectKey=org.mycompany.myproject
sonar.projectName=My Project
sonar.projectVersion=1.0
sonar.sources=src
sonar.pvs-studio.reportPath=/path/to/report.plog

sonar.modules=module1,module2
....

In this case, each module will download only warnings relevant to it from the report. Unfortunately, a warning (WARN) will be issued for the files from other modules, indicating the absence of files in the SonarScanner utility output, but all analysis results will be downloaded correctly.

For software security specialists

PVS-Studio's capabilities of detecting potential vulnerabilities are described on the page PVS-Studio SAST (Static Application Security Testing).

Security-related information on the code under analysis provided by PVS-Studio is additionally highlighted by SonarQube in the imported analysis results.

Cwe, cert, misra tags

PVS-Studio warnings can be grouped based on different security standards through Issues -> Tag or Rules -> Tag:

misra
cert
cwe

You can also select a particular CWE ID if available (when a warning falls into several CWE IDs at once, it will be marked with a single cwe tag; use prefixes in the warning text to filter by IDs):

Security Category

In SonarQube [7.8, 8.4], a new filter by security categories is available on pages Issues and Rules. Using this filter, SonarQube lets to classify rules according to security standards, such as:

Sans Top 25
OWASP Top 10
CWE

Rules and issues from PVS-Studio mapped with CWE ID can also be grouped in the following menu (Security Category -> CWE):

Note. Starting from the SonarQube 8.5 version, only Issues/Rules related to security of the 'Vulnerability' or 'Security Hotspot' type will be able to get to the Security Category tab.

PVS-Studio warnings as potential vulnerabilities

All the rules in PVS-Studio are of the 'Bug' type by default. If you need to change the 'Bug' rule type for 'Vulnerability' when having a CWE ID, then you need to add the following line in the '$SONARQUBE_HOME\conf\sonar.properties' server configuration file:

sonar.pvs-studio.treatPVSWarningsAsVulnerabilities=active

For the changes to be applied, you need to restart the SonarQube server. Once you have done this, the rules with the CWE ID will have the 'Vulnerability' type, and the new generated issues will already take this change into account.

Note. If you had old issues before, this change will not affect them. You'll need to manually change the type of these issues.

CWE and MISRA prefixes in warnings

The configuration file sonar-project.properties provides the following options:

sonar.pvs-studio.cwe=active
sonar.pvs-studio.misra=active

They are used to enable the inclusion of CWE and MISRA IDs into analyzer warnings:

Warnings can be filtered by tags anytime, regardless of the specified options.

Statistics on detected CWE and MISRA problems

The tab Projects -> Your Project -> Measures shows various code metrics calculated each time a check is launched. All collected information can be visualized as graphs. The Security section allows you to track the number of warnings with CWE and MISRA tags for the current project:

The other, general, metrics of PVS-Studio warnings can be viewed in a separate section, PVS-Studio.

Additional features of the PVS-Studio plugin

Most actions available to SonarQube users are standard for this platform. These actions include viewing and sorting analysis results, changing warning status, and so on. For this reason, this section will focus only on the additional features that come with the PVS-Studio plugin.

Sorting warnings by groups

PVS-Studio warnings are divided into several groups, some of which may be irrelevant to the current project. That's why we added an option allowing you to filter diagnostics by the following tags when creating a profile or viewing the analysis results:

PVS-Studio diagnostics group	SonarQube tag
General analysis	pvs-studio#ga
Micro-optimizations	pvs-studio#op
64-bit errors	pvs-studio#64
MISRA	pvs-studio#misra
Customers' specific diagnostics	pvs-studio#cs
Analyzer fails	pvs-studio#fails

These are the standard tags used in PVS-Studio warnings:

Code quality control standards	SonarQube tag
CWE	cwe
CERT	cert
MISRA	misra

Unlike the pvs-studio# tag group, the standard SonarQube tags may include, depending on the active quality profile, messages from other tools in addition to those from PVS-Studio.

Viewing code metrics

The tab Projects -> Your Project -> Measures shows various code metrics calculated each time a check is launched. When installing the analyzer plugin, a new section, PVS-Studio, is also added, where you can find useful information on your project and have graphs plotted:

Customizing the analyzer before analysis

When working with a large code base, the analyzer will inevitably generate a lot of messages, and it's usually impossible to address them all at once. In order to focus on the most important warnings and keep the statistics "uncluttered", you can do some tweaking of the analyzer settings and log filtering before launching SonarQube Scanner. There are several ways to do this.

1. You can have less "noise" in the analyzer's output by using the No Noise option. It allows you to completely turn off messages of the Low Certainty level (which is the third level). After restarting the analysis, all messages of this level will disappear from the analyzer's output. To enable this option, use the settings window "Specific Analyzer Settings" in Windows or refer to the general documentation for Linux and macOS.

2. You can speed up the check by excluding external libraries, test code, etc. from analysis. To add files and directories to the exceptions list, use the settings window "Don't Check Files" in Windows or refer to the general documentation for Linux and macOS.

3. If you need additional control over the output, for example, message filtering by level or error code, use the message filtering and conversion utility (Plog Converter) for the current platform.

4. If you need to change a warning's level, you can do so in the settings of the analyzer itself rather than in SonarQube. PVS-Studio has the following certainty levels: High, Medium, Low, and Fails. The respective levels in SonarQube are Critical, Major, Minor, and Info. See the page "Additional diagnostics configuration" on how to change warnings' levels.

Automatic updates of PVS-Studio plugins

The update procedure can be automated with SonarQube Web Api. Suppose you have set up an automatic PVS-Studio update system on your build server (as described in the article "Unattended deployment of PVS-Studio"). To update the PVS-Studio plugins and add the new diagnostics to the Quality Profile without using the Web interface, perform the following steps (the example below is for Windows; the same algorithm applies to other operating systems):

Copy the sonar-pvs-studio-plugin.jar file from the PVS-Studio installation directory to $SONARQUBE_HOME\extensions\plugins.
Restart the SonarQube server.

Suppose your SonarQube server is installed in C:\Sonarqube\ and is running as a service; PVS-Studio is installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\. The script which will automatically update the PVS-Studio distribution and sonar-pvs-studio-plugin will then look like this:

set PVS-Studio_Dir="C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio"
set SQDir="C:\Sonarqube\extensions\plugins\"

rem Update PVS-Studio
cd /d "C:\temp\"
xcopy %PVS-Studio_Dir%\PVS-Studio-Updater.exe . /Y
call PVS-Studio-Updater.exe /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES
del PVS-Studio-Updater.exe

rem Stop the SonarQube server
sc stop SonarQube

rem Wait until the server is stopped
ping -n 60 127.0.0.1 >nul

xcopy %PVS-Studio_Dir%\sonar-pvs-studio-plugin.jar %SQDir% /Y

sc start SonarQube

rem Wait until the server is started
ping -n 60 127.0.0.1 >nul

Specify the key for the Quality Profile where you want the new diagnostics activated. This key can be retrieved through the GET request api/qualityprofiles/search, for example (in one line):

curl http://localhost:9000/api/qualityprofiles/search
-v -u admin:admin

The server's response will be as follows:

{
  "profiles": [
    {
     "key":"c++-sonar-way-90129",
     "name":"Sonar way",
     "language":"c++",
     "languageName":"c++",
     "isInherited":false,
     "isDefault":true,
     "activeRuleCount":674,
     "rulesUpdatedAt":"2016-07-28T12:50:55+0000"
    },
    {
     "key":"c-c++-c-pvs-studio-60287",
     "name":"PVS-Studio",
     "language":"c/c++/c#",
     "languageName":"c/c++/c#",
     "isInherited":false,
     "isDefault":true,
     "activeRuleCount":347,
     "rulesUpdatedAt":"2016-08-05T09:02:21+0000"
    }
  ]
}

Suppose you want the new diagnostics to be added to your PVS-Studio profile for the languages 'c/c++/c#'. The key for this profile is the value c-c++-c-pvs-studio-60287.

Run the POST request api/qualityprofiles/activate_rules and specify the parameters profile_key (obligatory) and tags. The obligatory parameter profile_key specifies the key for the SonarQube profile where the diagnostics will be activated. In our example, this parameter has the value c-c++-c-pvs-studio-60287.

Note that a profile key may contain special characters, so the URL characters need to be escaped when passing the key in the POST request. In our example, the profile key c-c++-c-pvs-studio-60287 must be converted into c-c%2B%2B-c-pvs-studio-60287

The tags parameter is used to pass the tags of the diagnostics you want activated in your profile. To activate all PVS-Studio diagnostics, pass the pvs-studio tag.

The request for adding all diagnostics to a PVS-Studio profile will look like this (in one line):

curl --request POST -v -u admin:admin -data
"profile_key=c-c%2B%2B-c-pvs-studio-60287&tags=pvs-studio"
http://localhost:9000/api/qualityprofiles/activate_rules

Recommendations and limitations

The SonarQube server deletes closed issues older than 30 days by default. We recommend that you disable this option so that you could keep track of the number of warnings addressed over a long time period (say, a year);
If you have modules specified in the sonar-project.properties file and you have a separate analyzer report for each of them, you need to merge these reports using the PlogConverter utility and specify the resulting report once in sonar.pvs-studio.reportPath.
The developers of SonarQube recommend using SonarQube Scanner for MSBuild to analyze MSBuild projects. This scanner is a wrapper around the standard SonarQube scanner .It makes the creation of the sonar-project.properties configuration file easier by automatically adding modules (projects of a solution) to it and specifying the paths to the source files to be analyzed. However, we faced some limitations that lead to creating incorrect configuration files when working with complex projects. Because of that, we recommend using the standard SonarQube scanner to import PVS-Studio analysis results.
All source files that you want analyzed must be stored on the same disk. This limitation is imposed by the SonarQube platform. Source files stored on disks other than that specified in the sonar.projectBaseDir property will not be indexed, and the messages generated for those files will be ignored.

Analyzer Work Statistics (Diagrams)

Introduction
Gathering analyzer launch statistics
Statistics filtering and representation in Microsoft Excel

Introduction

The PVS-Studio analyzer provides a work statistics gathering feature to see the number of detected messages (including suppressed ones) across different certainty levels and rule sets. Gathered statistics can be filtered and represented as a diagram in a Microsoft Excel file, showing the change dynamics for messages in the project under analysis.

Gathering analyzer launch statistics

PVS-Studio can save launch statistics when analyzing source code through the Microsoft Visual Studio plugin (supported in versions starting with Visual Studio 2010). To enable the statistics saving feature, use the 'Save Solution Statistics' option available on the 'Specific Analyzer Settings' page which can be accessed through the 'PVS-Studio|Options...' menu item of the plugin.

The statistics are saved in the folder '%AppData%/PVS-Studio/Statistics'. For each analyzed Visual Studio solution, an associated subfolder is created with the same name. For each solution analysis launch, once the analysis is over, an individual statistics file is created which contains the analysis results (when analyzing Visual Studio projects from the command line, the statistics are also collected). The statistics file contains the information about the number of output messages (both new and old ones hidden by means of the message suppression mechanism) in each PVS-Studio rule set (General Analysis, Optimization, 64-bit Analysis), for each error and error certainty level. Messages marked as false positives are not included into the statistics.

Each Visual Studio solution analysis launch is saved into an xml.zip file, which is a usual zip archive containing a simple-format xml file. Thanks to the open format, you can interpret these files on your own or use the PVS-Studio plugin's UI, which is described in detail further in this article.

Statistics filtering and representation in Microsoft Excel

PVS-Studio provides an interface to filter the gathered analysis launch statistics and represent them by means of Microsoft Excel.

To use this dialog, you need to have Microsoft Excel (2007 or better) installed on your computer as well as the Visual Studio Tools for Office runtime (installed together with the Visual Studio IDE by default).

You can open the statistics filtering dialog by clicking on the 'PVS-Studio|Analysis Statistics...' menu item (also available in C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI):

Figure 1 - PVS-Studio analyzer launch statistics filtering dialog

The 'Include Suppressed Messages' checkbox allows showing/hiding suppressed analyzer messages. Messages disabled on the Detectable Errors (PVS-Studio|Options...) settings page are also filtered off when making the Excel document (but xml.zip statistics files themselves contain the complete information about all the error codes).

The PVS-Studio statistics filtering dialog includes only the "freshest" data per day. That is, if you ran analysis several times during the day, only the latest statistics file will be used (it is specified in the xml statistics file). However, the complete statistics are saved for every launch and can be found in the folder '%AppData%/PVS-Studio/Statistics/%SolutionName%', if necessary.

Once you have selected the required solutions in the list, set up the filters, and specified the time span you want to see the statistics for, an Excel document with the corresponding statistics data is created and can be opened by clicking on the 'Show in Excel' button (Figure 2).

Figure 2 - Statistics across message rule sets

The 'statistics across message rule sets' diagram shows the change dynamics for the total number of messages for each of the analyzer's rule sets, according to the filters set up previously.

Though opened through the PVS-Studio dialog, these diagrams are ordinary Excel documents providing the complete functionality of Excel's interface (filtering, scaling, etc.) and can be saved for further use.

Unattended deployment of PVS-Studio

Unattended deployment
Installation Using the Chocolatey Package Manager
Deploying licenses and customizing settings

In this article we describe working in the Windows environment. Working in the Linux environment is described in the article "How to run PVS-Studio on Linux".

Unattended deployment

As for most of other software setting up PVS-Studio requires administrative privileges.

Unattended setup is performed by specifying command line parameters, for example:

PVS-Studio_Setup.exe /verysilent /suppressmsgboxes 
/norestart /nocloseapplications

PVS-Studio may require a reboot if, for example, files that require update are locked. To install PVS-Studio without reboot, use the 'NORESTART' flag. Please also note that if PVS-Studio installer is started in a silent mode without this flag, the computer may be rebooted without any warnings or dialogs.

By default, all available PVS-Studio components will be installed. In case this is undesirable, the required components can be selected by the 'COMPONENTS' switch (following is a list of all possible components):

PVS-Studio_setup.exe /verysilent /suppressmsgboxes 
/nocloseapplications /norestart /components= Core, 
Standalone,MSVS,MSVS\2010,MSVS\2012,MSVS\2013,MSVS\2015,MSVS\2017,
MSVS\2019,IDEA,JavaCore,Rider

Brief description of components:

components with 'MSVS' prefix in their name are corresponding to Microsoft Visual Studio plug-in extensions;
the 'Core' component is a mandatory one; it contains a core command-line analyzer engine, which is required for all of the IDE extension plug-ins to operate;
the Standalone component installs compiler monitoring system, which allows to analyze any kind of C, C++ project as long as such project uses one of the supported compilers;
the 'IDEA' component corresponds to the PVS-Studio plugin for the IntelliJ IDEA development environment;
the 'JavaCore' component corresponds to the analyzer core for Java;
the 'Rider' component corresponds to the PVS-Studio plugin for the Rider development environment.

During installation of PVS-Studio all instances of Visual Studio / IntelliJ IDEA / Rider should be shut down, however to prevent user's data loss PVS-Studio does not shut down Visual Studio / IntelliJ IDEA / Rider.

The installer will exit with '100' if it is unable to install the extension (*.vsix) for any of the selected versions of Visual Studio.

The PVS-Studio-Updater.exe can perform check for analyzer updates, and, if an update is available, it can download it and perform an installation on a local system. To start the updater tool "silently", the same arguments can be utilized:

PVS-Studio-Updater.exe /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES

If there are no updates on the server, the updater will exit with the code '0'. As PVS-Studio-Updater.exe performs a local deployment of PVS-Studio, devenv.exe should not be running at the time of the update as well.

If you connect to Internet via a proxy with authentication, PVS-Studio-Updater.exe will prompt you for proxy credentials. If the proxy credentials are correct, PVS-Studio-Updater.exe will save them in the Windows Credential Manager and will use these credentials to check for updates in future. If you want to use the utility with proxy without authorization you can do it using proxy flag (/proxy=ip:port).

Installation Using the Chocolatey Package Manager

Another possible installation option is to use the Chocolatey package manager. When using this installation option, the package manager itself has to already be installed.

The installation command of the latest available PVS-Studio package version:

choco install pvs-studio

The installation command of a specific PVS-Studio package version:

choco install pvs-studio --version=7.05.35617.2075

When installing the package, you can also set the list of installed components in a similar way to those listed in the section "Unattended deployment" of this document. To specify components, use the flag '--package-parameters'. The components are equivalent to those described above and differ only in the syntax of some parameters:

Standalone;
JavaCore;
IDEA;
Rider;
MSVS2010;
MSVS2012;
MSVS2013;
MSVS2015;
MSVS2017;
MSVS2019.

Only the 'Core' component is installed by default. When listing the installation components, there is no need to specify 'Core'.

Here's the example of the command which the analyzer will install with the components 'Core' and 'Standalone':

choco install pvs-studio --package-parameters="'/Standalone'"

Deploying licenses and customizing settings

Different ways to enter the license when using various environments are covered in the documentation section "How to enter the PVS-Studio License and what's the next move".

If you want deploy PVS-Studio for many computers then you can install license without manual entering. It should place valid 'Settings.xml' file into folder under user's profile.

If many users share one desktop each one should have its own license.

Default settings location is the following:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\PVS-Studio\Settings.xml

It is user-editable xml file, but it also could be edited by through PVS-Studio IDE plugin on a target machine. Please note that all settings that should be kept as default values could be omitted from 'Setting.xml' file.

Speeding up the analysis of C/C++ code through distributed build systems (IncrediBuild)

To speed up the analysis, you can use a distributed build system, for example, IncrediBuild. The analysis of C/C++ code in PVS-Studio can be divided into 2 stages: preprocessing and analysis itself. Each of these steps can be executed remotely by the distributed build system. To analyze each C/C++ compiled file, PVS-Studio first launches an external preprocessor, and then the C++ analyzer itself. Each such process can be executed remotely.

Depending on the type of a checked project, the analysis of PVS-Studio is launched either through the PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe (for MSBuild projects) utility, or using the utility for monitoring the calls of the compiler - CLMonitor.exe \ Standalone.exe (for any build system). Further, one of these utilities will first run the preprocessor (cl.exe, clang.exe for Visual C++ projects, for the rest – the same process that was used for compilation) for each checked file, and then - the C++ analyzer PVS-Studio.exe.

Setting the value of 'ThreadCount' option to more than '16' (or more than a number of processor cores, if processor possesses more than 16 cores) is available only in PVS-Studio Enterprise license. Please contact us to order a license.

These processes run concurrently, depending on the 'PVS-Studio|Options...|Common AnalyzerSettings|ThreadCount' setting. By increasing the number of concurrently scanned files, with the help of this setting, and distributing the execution of these processes to remote machines, you can significantly (several times) reduce the total analysis time.

An example of IncrediBuild configuration

Here is an example of speeding up the PVS-Studio analysis by using the IncrediBuild distributed system. For this we'll need an IBConsole management utility. We will use the Automatic Interception Interface, which allows remotely executing any process, intercepted by this system. Launching of the IBConsole utility for distributed analysis using PVS-Studio will look as follows:

ibconsole /command=analyze.bat /profile=profile.xml

The analyze.bat file must contain a launch command for the analyzer, PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe or CLMonitor.exe, with all the necessary parameters for them (more detailed information about this can be found in the relevant sections of analyzer documentation). Profile.xml file contains the configuration for the Automatic Interception Interface. Here is an example of such a configuration for the analysis of the MSBuild project using PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>
<Profile FormatVersion="1">
  <Tools>
    <Tool Filename="PVS-Studio_Cmd" AllowIntercept="true" />
    <Tool Filename="cl" AllowRemote="true" />
    <Tool Filename="clang" AllowRemote="true" />
    <Tool Filename="PVS-Studio" AllowRemote="true" />
  </Tools>
</Profile>

Let's see, what each record in this file means. We can see that the AllowIntercept attribute with the 'true' value is specified for PVS-Studio_Cmd. This means that a process with such a name will not be executed itself in a distributed manner, but the system of automatic interception will track the child processes generated by this process.

For the preprocessor cl and clang processes and the C/C++ analyzer PVS-Studio process, the AllowRemote attribute is specified. This means that processes with such names, after being intercepted from the AllowIntercept processes, will be potentially executed on other (remote) IncrediBuild agents.

Before running IBConsole, you must specify the 'PVS-Studio|Options...|Common AnalyzerSettings|ThreadCount' setting, according to the total number of cores available on all of IncrediBuild agents. If it's not done, there will be no effect from using IncrediBuild!

Note: during the analysis of Visual C++ projects, PVS-Studio uses clang.exe supplied in the PVS-Studio distribution for preprocessing C/C++ files before the analysis, instead of the cl.exe preprocessor. This is done to speed up the preprocessing, as clang is doing it faster than cl. Some older versions of Incredibuild performs a distributed launch of the clang.exe preprocessor not quite correctly, resulting in errors of preprocessing. Therefore, clang should not be specified in the IBConsole configuration file, if your version of IncrediBuild handles clang incorrectly.

The used type of preprocessor during the analysis is specified with the 'PVS- Studio|Options...|Common AnalyzerSettings|Preprocessor' setting. If you choose the 'VisualCpp' value for this setting, PVS-Studio will use only cl.exe for preprocessing, which will be executed in a distributed manner, but slower than clang, which cannot be executed in a distributed manner. You should choose this setting depending on the type of the project and the number of agents available to analyze - when having a large numbers of agents, the choice of VisualCpp will be reasonable. With a small numbers of agents, local preprocessing with clang might prove to be faster.

For a distributed analysis using CLMonitor / Compiler Monitoring UI (Standalone.exe), you must change the configuration file as follows: replace PVS-Studio_Cmd with CLMonitor or Standalone (depending on whether the check is triggered from the UI or from the command line); cl, if necessary, should be replaced with the type of the preprocessor which is used during build (gcc, clang). For example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>
<Profile FormatVersion="1">
  <Tools>
    <Tool Filename="CLMonitor" AllowIntercept="true" />
    <Tool Filename="gcc" AllowRemote="true" />
    <Tool Filename="PVS-Studio" AllowRemote="true" />
  </Tools>
</Profile>

When specifying the ThreadCount settings, please note, that the coordinator machine of the analysis (i.e. the one, which runs the PVS-Studio_Cmd/CLMonitor/Standalone) will be responsible for processing the results coming from all of the PVS-Studio.exe processes. This job cannot be distributed - therefore, especially when ThreadCount is set to a very high value (more than 50 processes simultaneously), it is worth thinking about how to "unload" the coordinator machine from the analysis tasks (i.e., from performing the processes of the analyzer and preprocessor). This can be done by using the '/AvoidLocal' IBConsole flag, or in the settings of local IncrediBuild agent on the coordinator machine.

Installing and updating PVS-Studio on Linux

Install from repositories
Manual installation
Running the analyzer

PVS-Studio is distributed as Deb/Rpm packages or an archive. Using the installation from the repository, you will be able to receive updates about the release of a new version of the program.

The distribution kit includes the following files:

pvs-studio - the kernel of the analyzer;
pvs-studio-analyzer - a utility for checking projects without integration;
plog-converter - a utility for converting the analyzer report to different formats;

You can install the analyzer using the following methods:

Install from repositories

For debian-based systems:

wget -q -O - https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt | \
  sudo apt-key add -

sudo wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/viva64.list \
  https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pvs-studio

For yum-based systems:

wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/viva64.repo \
  https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.repo

yum update
yum install pvs-studio

For zypper-based systems:

wget -q -O /tmp/viva64.key https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt
sudo rpm --import /tmp/viva64.key
sudo zypper ar -f https://files.viva64.com/rpm viva64
sudo zypper update
sudo zypper install pvs-studio

Manual installation

You can download PVS-Studio for Linux here.

Deb package

sudo gdebi pvs-studio-VERSION.deb

sudo dpkg -i pvs-studio-VERSION.deb
sudo apt-get -f install

Rpm package

$ sudo dnf install pvs-studio-VERSION.rpm

sudo zypper install pvs-studio-VERSION.rpm

sudo yum install pvs-studio-VERSION.rpm

sudo rpm -i pvs-studio-VERSION.rpm

Running the analyzer

After a successful analyzer installation on your computer, to check a project follow the instructions on this page: "How to run PVS-Studio on Linux".

Installing and updating PVS-Studio on macOS

Installation from Homebrew
Manual Installation
- Installer:
- Archive
Running the analyzer

PVS-Studio is distributed as a graphical installer, archive or via the Homebrew repository. Using installation from a repository, you can get analyzer updates automatically. The distribution kit includes the following files:

pvs-studio - the kernel of the analyzer;
pvs-studio-analyzer - a utility for checking projects without integration;
plog-converter - a utility for converting the analyzer report to different formats;

You can install the analyzer using the following methods:

Installation from Homebrew

Installation:

brew install viva64/pvs-studio/pvs-studio

Update:

brew upgrade pvs-studio

Manual Installation

Installer:

Run the .pkg file and follow the instructions of the installer:

Running the analyzer

After a successful analyzer installation on your computer, to check a project follow the instructions on this page: "How to run PVS-Studio on Linux and macOS".

Mass suppression of analyzer warnings (disabling warnings for existing code)

Principle of operation
Windows: Visual Studio (C, C++ and C# analysis)
Windows: C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI
Projects in C and C++ on Linux/macOS
- Analysis using pvs-studio-analyzer utility
- Direct integration of the analyzer into the build system
Java projects under Windows/Linux/macOS
Suppression of analyzer warnings in SonarQube
What can I do after suppressing all warnings?
Additional links

Mass suppression of analyzer warnings can be useful in the following scenarios:

PVS-Studio is introduced in a project for the first time and issues a large number of warnings for the entire code. The development manager decides to initiate regular usage of the analyzer only for newly written code and to return to warnings on the current code later.
PVS-Studio is used in the project on a regular basis. During the development process false positives get in the analyzer report, and you want to suppress them without modifying source code files.

In such cases, analyzer warnings can be suppressed in a special way so that they won't get into newly generated reports. This mode doesn't require modification of the project's source files.

The analyzer supports the analysis of source code in C, C++, C# and Java programming languages. The analysis can be performed under Windows, Linux and macOS. In this regard, ways of warning suppression might differ depending on the used platform and projects' type. For this reason, please go to the section that suits you and follow the given instruction.

Principle of operation

Mechanism of warning suppression is based on using special files, which are added next to the project (or in any specified place). These files contain messages, tagged for this project as "unnecessary". We should note that modification of the source file that contains the tagged messages, and, in particular, line shift, will not lead to the re-emergence of these messages. However, the edit of the line containing this analyzer message can lead to its repeated occurrence, since this message has already become "new".

Windows: Visual Studio (C, C++ and C# analysis)

For Microsoft Visual Studio, you can use the PVS-Studio plugin, which conveniently integrates in IDE. It allows you to check the entire solution, specific projects or files, and it also supports incremental analysis.

In PVS-Studio menu, the Suppress Messages section opens a window for working with suppressed analyzer warnings.

In that window, several actions are available:

Suppress All – suppresses all of the analyzer's warnings;
Suppress Filtered - suppresses only the warnings that are currently displayed in the PVS-Studio results window, excepting the messages that are filtered out;
Un-Suppress from Selected - restores suppressed warnings for selected projects;
Display Suppressed Messages - displays suppressed analyzer warnings in the PVS-Studio Output Window together with the rest of the warnings. In this mode, you can return to fixing previously suppressed warnings. Such messages will be marked in a special way (crossed out) to avoid confusing them with the un-suppressed ones.

A special window can be used to view analysis results in Visual Studio.

This window allows navigating along analyzer warnings and jump to the code to fix them. The PVS-Studio window provides a wide range of options for filtering and sorting the results. It is also possible to quickly navigate to the documentation of the selected diagnostic.

Additional actions for each message are available in the context menu by clicking the right mouse button on the message.

The command for suppressing a selected warning is available here. When opening the menu on an already suppressed warning, the option for restoring it will also be available.

In the same way you can also remove the "suppressed warning" mark, by using the 'Un-Suppress Selected Messages' context menu item. Selected warnings will be un-suppressed and they will be removed from the suppress files in case if the corresponding project is opened in the IDE.

Adding suppress files to MSBuild \ Visual Studio projects

After creating a suppress file you can add it to the project as a noncompiled/text file, using the 'Add|Existing Item...' menu command. If a project includes at least one suppress file, then files next to the project file itself will be ignored. This allows keeping suppress and project files in different directories. We support adding of only one suppress file per project - the rest will be ignored.

Adding suppress files to Visual Studio solution

You can add a suppress file to the solution. You can do this by selecting 'Add|New Item...' command. The same as for projects, only one suppress file is supported - the rest will be ignored.

Suppress file of the solution level allows suppressing warnings in all projects of the corresponding solution. If projects have separate suppress files, the analyzer will take into account both warnings suppressed in a suppress file of the solution, and in a suppress file of a project.

When suppressing files in cases when a suppress file is added in solution, the following rules are applied:

if a suppress file is added only to solution, warnings are suppressed only in it - suppress files of the project level aren't created;
if suppress files are added both in a solution and a project, warnings will be suppressed in both files.

Suppressing of analyzer warnings from a command line

Warnings suppression can also be used right from a command line. The command-line PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe utility automatically catches up existing suppress files when running an analysis. It can also be used to suppress previously generated analyzer warnings saved in a plog file. To suppress warnings from an existing plog file, run PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe with the '--suppressAll' flag. For example (in one line):

"C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe"
-t "Solution.sln" -o "results.plog" --suppressAll SuppressOnly

Execution of this command will generate suppress files for all of the projects in the Solution.sln for which warnings in results.plog have been generated.

The '--suppressAll' flag supports 2 modes. 'SuppressOnly' will run suppression for the given plog without restarting the analysis. 'AnalyzeAndSuppress' will first perform the analysis, write an output plog file, and only after that it will suppress all of the warnings from it. In this mode, we'll see only new analyzer warnings on every analysis run thereafter (as warnings from previous runs will be suppressed).

Windows: C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI

PVS-Studio on Windows can be used not only for MSBuild \ Visual Studio projects. Using compiler monitoring system, you can run static analysis for all types of projects that use one of the compilers supported by PVS-Studio C++.

When running the analysis after build monitoring, using the command

clmonitor.exe analyze --useSuppressFile %PathToSuppressFile%

you can pass a path to suppress file that will be used during the analysis, via the additional '--useSuppressFile' (-u) flag.

Besides the command line CLMonitor.exe tool, you can also use compiler monitoring through the C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI tool. This tool allows you to check code regardless of the used compiler or build system, and then lets you work with the analysis results by providing a user interface similar to the PVS-Studio plugin for Visual Studio.

However, if you have a project which can be opened in Visual Studio, we recommend using the PVS-Studio plugin for Visual Studio to view the analysis results. The reason for it is that capabilities of a built-in code editor in Compiler Monitoring UI are far more limited than the code editor of Visual Studio. To open analysis report in Visual Studio, you can save the analyzer report in Compiler Monitoring UI, then reopen it.

The menu for running the analysis and suppressing warnings looks as follows.

After clicking "Analyze Your Files" menu item, you will see the "Compiler Monitoring (C and C++)" window.

To filter analyzer warnings, you need to specify a file with suppressed warnings before starting the analysis. You can create and maintain such file through the "Message Suppression..." menu, which is the same as the one presented in the section about Visual Studio. After the analysis is finished, only new errors will be shown in the PVS-Studio output window. Without specifying the file, the analyzer will show all the results.

Projects in C and C++ on Linux/macOS

Under Linux and macOS, the commands for suppression and filtration of analyzer warnings can only be performed from the command line. If necessary, this process can be automated on a server that performs an automated analyzer launch. There are several ways of using this mechanism, depending on the way of analyzer integration.

Analysis using pvs-studio-analyzer utility

To suppress all of the analyzer's warnings (first time and in subsequent cases), you need to execute the command:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress /path/to/report.log

If you want to suppress a warning for a specific file, use the --file(-f) flag:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -f test.c /path/to/report.log

In addition to the file itself, you can explicitly specify the line number to suppress:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -f test.c:22 /path/to/report.log

This entry suppresses all warnings that are located on line 22 of the 'test.c' file.

This flag can be specified repeatedly, thus suppressing warnings in several files at once.

In addition to explicit file specification, there is a mechanism for suppressing specific diagnostics:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -v512 /path/to/report.log

The --warning(-v) flag can also be specified repeatedly:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -v1040 -v512 /path/to/report.log

The above-mentioned --file and --warning flags can be combined to suppress warnings more precisely:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress -f test.c:22 -v512 /path/to/report.log

So the above command will suppress all v512 diagnostic warnings on line 22 of the 'test.c' file.

Analysis of the project can be performed as always. At the same time, the suppressed warnings will be filtered out:

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... -o /path/to/report.log
plog-converter ...

This way, the suppressed warnings will be saved in the current directory, in a file named suppress_base.json, which should be stored with the project. New suppressed warnings will be appended to this file. If there is a need to specify a different name or location of the file, then the commands above may be supplemented by specifying the path to the file with suppressed warnings.

Direct integration of the analyzer into the build system

Direct integration of the analyzer might look like this:

.cpp.o:
  $(CXX) $(CFLAGS) $(DFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) $< -o $@
  pvs-studio --cfg $(CFG_PATH) --source-file $< --language C++
     --cl-params $(CFLAGS) $(DFLAGS) $(INCLUDES) $<

In this integration mode, the C++ analyzer core is called directly, so the analyzer cannot perform analysis on the source files and filter them at the same time. So, filtration and warnings suppression would require additional commands.

To suppress all the warnings, you must run the command:

pvs-studio-analyzer suppress /path/to/report.log

To filter a new analysis log according to the previously generated suppression file, you will need to use the following commands:

pvs-studio-analyzer filter-suppressed /path/to/report.log
plog-converter ...

The default name for the file with the suppressed warnings remains as suppress_base.json, and can be changed, if necessary.

Java projects under Windows/Linux/macOS

Warnings suppression in IntelliJ IDEA

You can use a special window to view analysis results in IntelliJ IDEA.

This window allows navigating along found warnings and jumping to the source code, to fix these warnings. PVS-Studio window provides a wide range of options for filtering and sorting the results. It is also possible to quickly navigate to the documentation of the selected analyzer rule.

Additional options of working with each warning are available in the context menu by clicking the right button on the warning itself. The command for suppressing a selected warning is also available here.

PVS-Studio plugin for IntelliJ IDEA also allows you to suppress all of the generated messages in one click.

By default, a suppression file is available at {projectPath}/.PVS-Studio/suppress_base.json, but you can change this path in the settings of the plugin.

Whichever suppression method you use, the suppressed warnings will not appear in the subsequent analysis reports.

Suppression of analyzer warnings in Gradle

To suppress all of the warnings, use this command:

./gradlew pvsSuppress "-Ppvsstudio.report=/path/to/report.json"
  "-Ppvsstudio.output=/path/to/suppress_base.json"

Suppression of analyzer warnings in Maven

To suppress all of the warnings, use this command:

mvn pvsstudio:pvsSuppress "-Dpvsstudio.report=/path/to/report.json"
  "-Dpvsstudio.output=/path/to/suppress_base.json"

Direct Integration of the Analyzer in the Build System

To suppress all of the warnings, use this command:

java -jar pvs-studio.jar --convert toSuppress
  --src-convert "/path/to/report.json"
  --dst-convert "/path/to/suppress_base.json"

Suppression of analyzer warnings in SonarQube

SonarQube (formerly Sonar) is an open source platform designed for continuous inspection and measurement of code quality. SonarQube combines the results of the analysis to a single dashboard, keeping track of the history of previous analysis runs, which allows you to see the overall trend of software quality during development. An additional advantage is the ability to combine results of different analyzers.

So, after getting the analysis results from one or more analyzers, you should go to the list of warnings and click the "Bulk Change" button, which opens the following menu.

In this window, you can mark up all warnings of the analyzer as "won't fix" and further work only with new errors.

What can I do after suppressing all warnings?

Configure static analysis on the build server and developers' computers. Regularly correct new analyzer warnings and do not let them accumulate. It is also worth planning a review to correct suppressed warnings in the future.

Additional control over code quality can be achieved by sending results via mail. It is possible to send warnings to only those developers who had written erroneous code using BlameNotifier tool, which is included in PVS-Studio distribution.

For some users it may be convenient to view results in Jenkins or TeamCity using the PVS-Studio plugin, and send a link to such a page.

Additional links

This section describes all the possible ways of suppressing analyzer warnings at the moment. The collected material is based on the documentation for the PVS-Studio analyzer, but the details on that topic were considered more than in documentation. General information may not be very informative for new users, so you should check out the documentation below.

Handling the diagnostic messages list

Navigation and sorting
Message filtering
Quick jumps to individual messages
Managing the Visual Studio Task List

While handling the large number of messages (and the first-time verification of large-scale projects, when filters have not been set yet and false positives haven't been marked, the number of generated messages can come close to tens of thousands), it is reasonable to use the navigational, searching and filtering mechanisms integrated into PVS-Studio output window.

Navigation and sorting

The main purpose of PVS-Studio output window is to simplify the analyzed project's source code navigation and reviewing of potentially dangerous fragments in it. Double-clicking any of the messages in the list will automatically open the file corresponding to this message in the code editor, will place the cursor on the desired line and highlight it. The quick navigation buttons (see figure 1) allow for an easy review of the potentially dangerous fragments in the source code without the need of constant IDE windows switching.

Figure 1 — Quick navigation buttons

To present the analysis results, PVS-Studio output window utilizes a virtual grid, which is capable of fast rendering and sorting of generated messages even for huge large-scale projects (virtual grid allows you to handle a list containing hundreds of thousands of messages without any considerable hits to performance). The far left grid column can be used to mark messages you deem interesting, for instance the ones you wish to review later. This column allows sorting as well, so it won't be a problem to locate all the messages marked this way. The "Show columns" context menu item can be used to configure the column display in the grid (figure 2):

Figure 2 — Configuring the output window grid

The grid supports multiline selection with standard Ctrl and Shift hotkeys, while the line selection persists even after the grid is resorted on any column. The "Copy selected messages to clipboard" context menu item (or Ctrl+C hotkey) allows you to copy the contents of all selected lines to a system clipboard.

Message filtering

PVS-Studio output window filtering mechanisms make it possible to quickly find and display either a single diagnostic message or the whole groups of these messages. The window's toolstrip contains several toggle buttons which can be used to turn the display of their corresponding message groups on or off (figure 3).

Figure 3 — Message filtration groups

All of these switches could be subdivided into 3 sets: filters corresponding to the message certainty, filters corresponding to type of message diagnostics rule set, and filters corresponding to False Alarm markings within the source code. Turning these filters off will momentarily hide all of their corresponding messages inside the output list.

Detailed description of the levels of certainty and sets of diagnostic rules is given in the documentation section "Getting Acquainted with the PVS-Studio Static Code Analyzer".

The quick filtering mechanism (quick filters) allows you to filter the analysis report by the keywords that you can specify. The quick filtering panel could be opened with the "Quick Filters" button on the output window's toolstrip (figure 4).

Figure 4— Quick filtering panel

Quick filtering allows the display of messages according to the filters by 3 keywords: by the message's code, by the message's text and by the file containing this message. For example, it is possible to display all the messages containing the word 'odd' from the 'command.cpp' file. Changes to the output list are applied momentarily after the keyword edit box loses focus. The 'Reset Filters' button will erase all of the currently applied filtering keywords.

All of the filtering mechanisms described above could be combined together, for example filtering the level of displayed messages and the file which should contain them at the same time, while simultaneously excluding all the messages marked as false positives.

Quick jumps to individual messages

In case there is a need to navigate to an individual message in the grid, it is possible to use the quick jumping dialog, which can be accessed through the "Navigate to ID..." context menu item (figure 5):

Figure 5 - evoking of the quick jumping dialog

Figure 6 - Navigate to ID dialog

Each of the messages in PVS-Studio output list possesses a unique identifier — the serial number under which this message was added into the grid, which itself is displayed in the ID column. The quick navigation dialog allows you to select and auto-focus the message with the designated ID, regardless of current grid's selection and sorting. You also may note that the IDs of the messages contained within the grid are not necessarily strictly sequential, as a fraction them could be hidden by the filtering mechanism, so navigation to such messages is impossible.

Managing the Visual Studio Task List

The large-scale projects are often developed by a distributed team, so a single person isn't able to judge every message static analyzer generates for false-positives, and even more so, is unable to correct the corresponding sections of the source code. In this case it makes sense to delegate such messages to a developer who is directly responsible for the code fragment in question.

PVS-Studio allows you to automatically generate the special TODO comment containing all the information required to analyze the code fragment marked by it, and to insert it into the source code. Such comment will immediately appear inside the Visual Studio Task List window (in Visual Studio 2010 the comments' parsing should be enabled in the settings: Tools->Options->Text Editor->C++->Formatting->Enumerate Comment Tasks->true) on condition that the ' Tools->Options->Environment->Task List->Tokens' list does contain the corresponding TODO token (it is present there by default). The comment could be inserted using the 'Add TODO comments for selected messages' command of the context menu (figure 7):

Figure 7 - Inserting the TODO comment

The TODO comment will be inserted into the line which is responsible for generation of analyzer's message and will contain the error's code, analyzer message itself and a link to the online documentation for this type of error. Such a comment could be easily located by anyone possessing an access to the sources thanks to the Visual Studio Task List. And with the help of the comment's text itself the potential issue could be detected and corrected even by the developer who does not have PVS-Studio installed or does not possess the analyzer's report for the full project (figure 8).

Figure 8 —Visual Studio Task List

The Task List Window could be accessed through the View->Other Windows->Task List menu. The TODO comments are displayed in the 'Comments' section of the window.

Suppression of false alarms

Suppression of individual false positives (Mark as False Alarm)
Implementation of the false alarm suppression function
Suppressing false positives located within C/C++ macro statements (#define) and for other code fragments
Suppression of false positives through diagnostic configuration files (.pvsconfig)
Other means of filtering messages in the PVS-Studio analyzer (Detectable Errors, Don't Check Files, Keyword Message Filtering)
Mass Suppression of Analyzer Messages (Mass Suppression)
Possible issues

This section describes analyzer's message suppression features. It provides ways to control both the separate analyzer messages under specific source code lines and whole groups of messages related, for example, to the use of C/C++ macros. The described method, by using comments of a special format, allows disabling individual analyzer rules or modifying text of analyzer's messages.

Features described in the following section are applicable to both C/C++ and C# PVS-Studio analyzers, if the contrary is not stated explicitly.

Suppression of individual false positives (Mark as False Alarm)

Any code analyzer always produces a lot of the so called "false alarms" besides helpful messages. These are situations when it is absolutely obvious to the programmer that the code does not have an error but it is not obvious to the analyzer. Such messages are called false alarms. Consider a sample of code:

obj.specialFunc(obj);

The analyzer finds it suspicious that a method is called from an object, in which as an argument the same object is passed, so it will issue a warning V678 for this code. The programmer can also know that the use of the 'specialFunc' method in this way is conceivable, therefore, in this case the analyzer warning is a false positive. You can notify the analyzer that the warning V678 issued on this code is a false positive. It can be done either manually or using context menu command.

To suppress a false positive you can add a special comment in code:

obj.specialFunc(obj); //-V678

Now the analyzer will not generate the V678 warning on this line. After marking the message as a false alarm, the message will disappear from error list. You may enable the display of messages marked as 'False Alarms' in PVS-Studio error list by changing the value of 'PVS-Studio -> Options... -> Specific Analyzer Settings -> DisplayFalseAlarms' settings option.

You may add this comment manually as well without using the "Mark selected messages as False Alarms" command, but you must follow the note's format: two slashes, minus (without a space), error code. You may also use a special command provided by PVS-Studio. The user is provided with two commands available from the PVS-Studio's context menu (figure 1).

Figure 1 - Commands to work with the mechanism of false alarm suppression

Let's study the available commands concerning False Alarm suppression:

1. Mark selected messages as False Alarms. You may choose one or more false alarms in the list (figure 2) and use this command to mark the corresponding code as safe.

Figure 2 - Choosing warnings before executing the "Mark selected messages as False Alarms" command

2. Remove False Alarm marks from selected messages. This command removes the comment that marks code as safe. This function might be helpful if, for instance, you were in a hurry and marked some code fragment as safe by mistake. Like in the previous case, you must choose the required messages from the list.

We do not recommend you to mark messages as false alarms without preliminarily reviewing the corresponding code fragments since it contradicts the ideology of static analysis. Only the programmer can determine if a particular error message is false or not.

Implementation of the false alarm suppression function

Usually compilers employ #pragma-directives to suppress individual error messages. Consider a code sample:

unsigned arraySize = n * sizeof(float);

The compiler generates the following message:

warning C4267: 'initializing' : conversion from 'size_t' to 'unsigned int', possible loss of data

x64Sample.cpp 151

This message can be suppressed with the following construct:

#pragma warning (disable:4267)

To be more exact, it is better to arrange the code in the following way to suppress this particular message:

#pragma warning(push)
#pragma warning (disable:4267) 
  unsigned arraySize = n * sizeof(float);
#pragma warning(pop)

The PVS-Studio analyzer uses comments of a special kind. Suppression of the PVS-Studio's message for the same code line will look in the following way:

unsigned arraySize = n * sizeof(INT_PTR); //-V103

This approach was chosen to make the target code cleaner. The point is that PVS-Studio can inform about issues in the middle of multi-line expressions as, for instance, in this sample:

  size_t n = 100;
  for (unsigned i = 0;
       i < n; // the analyzer will inform of the issue here
       i++)
  {
      // ...
  }

To suppress this message using the comment, you just need to write:

  size_t n = 100;
  for (unsigned i = 0;
       i < n; //-V104
       i++)
  {
      // ...
  }

But if we had to add a #pragma-directive into this expression, the code would look much less clear.

Storage of the marking in source code lets you modify it without the risk to lose information about lines with errors.

It is also possible to use a separate base where we could store information in the following approximate pattern: error code, file name, line number. This pattern is implemented in the different PVS-Studio feature known as "Mass Suppression".

Suppressing false positives located within C/C++ macro statements (#define) and for other code fragments

It goes without saying that the analyzer can locate potential problems within macro statements (#define) and produce diagnostic messages accordingly. But at the same time these messages will be produced by analyzer at such positions where the macro is being used, i.e. where placement of macro's body into the code is actually happening. An example:

#define TEST_MACRO \
  int a = 0;       \
  size_t b = 0;    \
  b = a; 

void func1()
{
  TEST_MACRO // V1001 here
}

void func2()
{
  TEST_MACRO // V1001 here
}

To suppress these messages you can use the "Mark as False Alarm" command. Then the code containing suppression commands will look like this:

#define TEST_MACRO \
  int a = 0;       \
  size_t b = 0;    \
  b = a; 

void func1()
{
  TEST_MACRO //-V1001
}

void func2()
{
  TEST_MACRO //-V1001
}

But in case the macro is being utilized quite frequently, marking it everywhere as False Alarm is quite inconvenient. It is possible to add a special marking to the code manually to make the analyzer mark the diagnostics inside this macro as False Alarms automatically. With this marking the code will look like this:

//-V:TEST_MACRO:1001

#define TEST_MACRO \
  int a = 0;       \
  size_t b = 0;    \
  b = a; 

void func1()
{
  TEST_MACRO
}

void func2()
{
  TEST_MACRO
}

During the verification of such a code the messages concerning issues within macro will be immediately marked as False Alarms. Also, it is possible to select several diagnostics at once, separating them by comma:

//-V:TEST_MACRO:1001, 105, 201

Please note that if the macro contains another nested macro inside it then the name of top level macro should be specified for automated marking.

#define NO_ERROR 0
#define VB_NODATA ((long)(77))
size_t stat;

#define CHECK_ERROR_STAT                        \
    if( stat != NO_ERROR &&  stat != VB_NODATA ) \
      return stat;

size_t testFunc()
{
    {
      CHECK_ERROR_STAT // #1
    }

    {
      CHECK_ERROR_STAT // #2
    }

    return VB_NODATA; // #3
}

In the example mentioned above the V126 diagnostics appears at three positions. To automatically mark it as False Alarm one should add the following code at positions #1 and #2:

//-V:CHECK_ERROR_STAT:126

To make it work at #3 you should additionally specify this:

//-V:VB_NODATA:126

Unfortunately to simply specify "to mark V126 inside VB_NODATA macro" and not to specify anything for CHECK_ERROR_STAT macro is impossible because of technical specifics of preprocessing mechanism.

Everything that is written in this section about macros is also true for any code fragment. For example, if you want to suppress all the warnings of the V103 diagnostic for the call of the function 'MyFunction', you should add such a string:

//-V:MyFunction:103

Suppression of false positives through diagnostic configuration files (.pvsconfig)

Analyzer messages can be manipulated and filtered through the comments of as special format. Such comments can be placed either in the special diagnostic configuration files (.pvsconfig) for all analyzers, or directly inside the source code (but only for C/C++ analyzer).

The diagnostic configuration files are plain text files which are added to any Visual Studio project or solution. To add the configuration file, select the project or solution in question in the Solution Explorer window inside Visual Studio IDE, and select a context menu item 'Add New Item...'. In the following window, select the 'PVS-Studio Filters File' template (figure 3):

Figure 3 - Adding diagnostic configuration file to a solution.

Because of the specifics of some Visual Studio versions, the 'PVS-Studio Filters File' file template may be absent in some versions and editions of Visual Studio for projects and\or solutions. In such a case, it is possible to use add diagnostic configuration file as a simple text file by specifying the 'pvsconfig' extension manually. Make sure that after the file is added, it is set as non-buildable in its' compilation properties.

When a configuration file is added to a project, it will be valid for all the source files in this project. A solution configuration file will affect all the source files in all of the projects added to that solution.

In addition, .pvsconfig file can be placed in the user data folder (%AppData%\PVS-Studio\) - this file will be automatically used by analyzer, without the need to modify any of your project\solution files.

When using the PVS-Studio_Cmd command-line tool, you can specify the path to the .pvsconfig configuration file using the --rulesConfig (-C) parameter, for example, as follows:

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe -t D:\project\project.sln 
-C D:\project\rules.pvsconfig

The '.pvsconfig' files utilize quite a simple syntax. Any line starting with the '#' character is considered a comment and ignored. The filters themselves are written as one-line C++/C# comments, i.e. every filter should start with '//' characters.

In case of C/C++ code, the filters can also be specified directly in the source code. Please note, that this is not supported for C# projects!

Next, let's review different variants of diagnostic configurations and filters.

Filtering analyzer messages by a fragment of source code (for example, macro, variable and function names)

Let us assume that the following structure exists:

struct MYRGBA
{
  unsigned data;
};

Also there are several functions that are utilizing it:

void f1(const struct MYRGBA aaa)
{
}

long int f2(int b, const struct MYRGBA aaa)
{
  return int();
}

long int f3(float b, const struct MYRGBA aaa,  char c)
{
  return int();
}

The analyzer produces three V801: "Decreased performance. It is better to redefine the N function argument as a reference" messages concerning these functions. Such a message will be a false one for the source code in question, as the compiler will optimize the code by itself, thus negating the issue. Of course it is possible to mark every single message as a False Alarm using the "Mark As False Alarm" option. But there is a better way. Adding this line into the sources will suffice:

//-V:MYRGBA:801

For C/C++ projects, we advise you to add such a line into .h file near the declaration of the structure, but if this is somehow impossible (for example the structure is located within the system file) you could add this line into the stdafx.h as well.

And then, every one of these V801 messages will be automatically marked as false alarm after re-verification.

It's not only single words that the described mechanism of warning suppression can be applied. That's why it may be very useful sometimes.

Let's examine a few examples:

//-V:<<:128

This comment will suppress the V128 warning in all the lines which contain the << operator.

buf << my_vector.size();

If you want the V128 warning to be suppressed only when writing data into the 'log' object, you can use the following comment:

//-V:log<<:128
buf << my_vector.size(); // Warning untouched
log << my_vector.size(); // Warning suppressed

Note. Notice that the comment text string must not contain spaces.

Correct: //-V:log<<:128
Incorrect: //-V:log <<:128

When searching for the substring, spaces are ignored. But don't worry: a comment like the following one will be treated correctly:

//-V:ABC:501
AB C = x == x; // Warning untouched
AB y = ABC == ABC; // Warning suppressed

Complete warning disabling

Our analyzer allows the user to completely disable output of any warning through a special comment. In this case, you should specify the number of the diagnostic you want to turn off, after a double colon. The syntax pattern is as follows:

//-V::(number)

To disable a number of diagnostics, you can list their numbers separating them by commas. The syntax pattern is the following:

//-V::(number1),(number2),...,(numberN)

There is also an option to disable a group of diagnostics. The syntax pattern is the following:

//-V::GA
//-V::X64
//-V::OP
//-V::CS
//-V::MISRA

To disable several groups of diagnostics, you can list them separating by commas. The syntax pattern is the following:

//-V::X64,CS,...

To turn off all the diagnostics of C++ or C# analyzer use the following form:

//-V::C++
//-V::C#

For example, if you want to ignore warning V122, you insert the following comment in the beginning of a file:

//-V::122

If you want to disable warnings V502, V507, and V525, then the comment will look like this:

//-V::502,507,525

Since the analyzer won't output the warnings you have specified, this might significantly reduce the size of the analysis log when too many false positives are generated for some diagnostic.

Excluding files from the analysis by masks

You can set the exclusion from the analysis of files / directories that correspond to specified masks. It might be convenient, for example, when it's needed to exclude the code of third-party libraries or automatically generated files from the analysis.

Several examples of masks:

//V_EXCLUDE_PATH C:\TheBestProject\thirdParty
//V_EXCLUDE_PATH *\UE4\Engine\*
//V_EXCLUDE_PATH *.autogen.cs

Syntax of masks is the same as the one for the options 'FileNameMasks' and 'PathMasks', described in the document "Settings: Don't Check Files".

Other means of filtering messages in the PVS-Studio analyzer (Detectable Errors, Don't Check Files, Keyword Message Filtering)

There may be situations in which a certain type of diagnostics is not relevant for the analyzed project, or one of the diagnostics produces warnings for the source code which, you have no doubt in it, is correct. In this case, you can use the group messages suppression based on the filtering of the gained analysis results. The list of available filtering modes can be accessed through the 'PVS-Studio -> Options' menu item.

The suppression of multiple messages through filters does not require restarting of the analysis, the filtering results will appear in PVS-Studio output window immediately.

First, you may disable diagnosis of some errors by their code. You may do this using the "Settings: Detectable Errors" tab. On the tab of detected errors, you may specify the numbers of errors that must not be shown in the analysis report. Sometimes it is reasonable to remove errors with particular codes from the report. For instance, if you are sure that errors related to explicit type conversion (codes V201, V202, V203) are not relevant for your project, you may hide them. A display of errors of a certain type can be disabled using the context menu command "Hide all Vxxx errors". Accordingly, in case you need to enable a display back, you can configure it on the section "Detectable Errors", mentioned above.

Second, you may disable analysis of some project's parts (some folders or project files). This is the "Settings: Don't Check Files" tab. On this tab, you may insert information about libraries whose files' inclusions (through the #include directive) must not be analyzed. This might be needed to reduce the number of unnecessary diagnostic messages. Suppose your project employs the Boost library. Although the analyzer generates diagnostic messages on some code from this library, you are sure that it is rather safe and well written. So, perhaps there is no need to get warnings concerning its code. In this case, you may disable analysis of the library's files by specifying the path to it on the settings page. Besides, you may add file masks to exclude some files from analysis. The analyzer will not check files meeting the mask conditions. For instance, you may use this method to exclude autogenerated files from analysis.

Path masks for files which are mentioned in the latest generated PVS-Studio report in the output window could be appended to the 'Don't Check Files' list using the "Don't check files and hide all messages from..." context menu command for the currently selected message (figure 4).

Figure 4 — Appending path masks through the context menu

This command allows the appending either of a single selected file or of the whole directory mask containing such a file.

Third, you may suppress separate messages by their text. On the "Settings: Keyword Message Filtering" tab, you may set filtering of errors by their text and not their code. If necessary, you may hide error messages containing particular words or phrases in the report. For instance, if the report contains errors that refer to the names of the functions printf and scanf and you think that there cannot be any errors related to them, you should simply add these two words using the editor of suppressed messages.

Mass Suppression of Analyzer Messages (Mass Suppression)

Sometimes, especially on the stage of stage of implementation of static analysis in large projects, you may need to 'suppress' all warnings of code base, since the developers may not have the necessary resources to fix the errors found by the analyzer in the old code. In such a case, it can be useful to 'hide' all warnings issued for existing code to track it only when errors occur again. This can be achieved by using the "mass suppression of analyzer messages" mechanism. The use of the appropriate mechanism in Windows environment is described in the document "Mass Suppression of Analyzer Messages", in Linux environment - in the relevant section of document "How to run PVS-Studio on Linux".

Possible issues

In rare cases markers arranged automatically might sometimes appear in false places. In this case, the analyzer will again produce the same error warnings because it will fail to find the markers. This is the issue of the preprocessor refers to multi-line #pragma-directives of a particular type that also cause confusion with line numbering. To solve this issue, you should mark messages you experience troubles with manually. PVS-Studio always informs about such errors with the message "V002. Some diagnostic messages may contain incorrect line number".

Like in case of any other procedure involving mass processing of files, you must remember about possible access conflicts when marking messages as false alarms. Since some files might be opened in an external editor and modified there during file marking, the result of joint processing of such files cannot be predicted. That is why we recommend you either to have copies of source code or use version control systems.

Converting analysis results (PlogConverter tool)

PlogConverter tool
- Parameters
- Exit codes
Automatic notification of analyzer warnings

This section covers converting logs for Windows. Converting logs for Linux and macOS is described in the document "How to run PVS-Studio on Linux and macOS".

The analysis results that PVS-Studio generates as its output after it has finished checking a project (either from the Visual Studio plugin or in command-line batch mode) are typically presented as an XML log file (".plog"). Using direct integration of C++ analyzer to the build system to perform the analysis produces an unparsed 'raw' log file. You can view these files in the PVS-Studio plugin for Visual Studio or in the C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI (Standalone.exe). These formats, however, are not convenient for viewing directly in a text editor, sending them via email, and so on. The PVS-Studio distribution includes, among other things, the PlogConverter utility, which allows you to convert analysis results to other formats.

PlogConverter tool

When opening log file in a text editor, a user has to deal with XML markup or 'raw' unreadable log from the analyzer. To convert the analysis results into a more convenient format, use PlogConverter utility, which comes with PVS-Studio and can be found in the PVS-Studio installation directory ("C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio" by default). You can also download the source code of the utility.

Parameters

Use the "--help" option to display the basic information about the utility:

PlogConverter.exe --help

Let's take a closer look at the utility's parameters:

--renderTypes (or -t): defines the possible formats into which the log files can be converted. The supported formats are Html, FullHtml, Totals, Txt, Tasks, Csv, Plog, and TeamCity. When not defined explicitly, the log file will be converted into all of these formats.
- Html: converts the log file into an html file (convenient for automatic delivery to addressees on your mailing list).
- FullHtml: converts the log file and the source files in html-files (you can view the analyzer report in browser with sorting by warnings and navigation along the code).
- Txt: converts the log file into a text file.
- Csv: converts the log file into a comma-separated file (convenient for viewing in Microsoft Excel, for example).
- Totals: outputs the statistics on the issued warnings across the types (GA, OP, 64, CS, MISRA) and certainty levels. Detailed description of the levels of certainty and sets of diagnostic rules is given in the documentation section "Getting Acquainted with the PVS-Studio Static Code Analyzer".
- Tasks: converts the log file into format that can be opened in QtCreator.
- Plog: can be used to merges several plog xml files into one or transforms a raw unparsed log to parsed xml one.
- TeamCity: converts the log file into a file for viewing in the TeamCity CI.

You can combine different format options by separating them with "," (no spaces), for example:

PlogConverter.exe D:\Projct\results.plog --renderTypes=Html,Csv,Totals

PlogConverter.exe D:\Projct\results.plog -t Html,Csv,Totals

--analyzer (or -a): filters the warnings by a specified mask. The mask format:

MessageType:MessageLevels

"MessageType" can be set to one of the following types: GA, OP, 64, CS, MISRA, Fail

"MessageLevels" can be set to values from 1 to 3

You can combine different masks by separating the options with ";" (no spaces), for example (written in one line):

PlogConverter.exe D:\Projct\results.plog --renderTypes=Html,Csv,Totals
--analyzer=GA:1,2;64:1

PlogConverter.exe D:\Projct\results.plog -t Html,Csv,Totals -a GA:1,2;64:1

The command format reflects the following logic: convert ".plog" into Html, Csv, and Totals formats, keeping only the general-analysis warnings (GA) of the 1-st and 2-nd levels and 64-bit warnings (64) of the 1-st level.

--excludedCodes (or -d): creates a list of warnings (separated with ",") that shouldn't be included into the resulting log file. For example, you don't want the V101, V102, and V200 warnings to be included (written in one line):

PlogConverter.exe D:\Projct\results.plog --renderTypes=Html,Csv,Totals
  --excludedCodes=V101,V102,V200

PlogConverter.exe D:\Projct\results.plog -t Html,Csv,Totals -d V101,V102,V200

--settings (or -s): defines the path to the PVS-Studio configuration file. PlogConverter will read your custom settings for the warnings you want turned off specified in the configuration file. This parameter in fact extends the list of the warnings that you want to be excluded defined by the "--excludedCodes" parameter.
--srcRoot (or -r): specifies the replacer of the "SourceTreeRoot" marker. If the path to the project's root directory was replaced with the "SourceTreeRoot" marker (|?|), this parameter becomes obligatory (otherwise the utility won't be able to find the project files).
--outputDir (or -o): defines the directory where the converted log files will be created. If not specified, the files will be created in the same directory where "PlogConverter.exe" is located.
--outputNameTemplate (or -n): specifies the filename template without extension. All the converted log files will have the same name but different extensions (".txt", ".html", ".csv", ".tasks" or ".plog" depending on the "--renderTypes" parameter).
--errorCodeMapping (or -m): to enable a display of CWE ID and MISRA ID for the found warnings: " -m cwe,misra".
--indicate-warnings (or -w): sets the PlogConverter utility's exit code to '2' if after log filtration the filtered output file (files) still contains warnings.

Exit codes

The PlogConverter utility defines several non-zero exit codes, which do not necessarily indicate some issue with the operation of the tool itself, i.e. even when the tool returns something other when zero it does not always mean that the tool has 'crashed'. Here's the description of all possible exit codes, that PlogConverter can return.

'0' - conversion finished successfully;
'1' - errors were encountered during generation of one of the output files;
'2' - output contains non-suppressed warnings after filtration. This exit code will be generated only when using converter with "--indicate-warnings" (-w) flag;
'3' - general (nonspecific) error in the converter's operation, a possible handled exception. Usually, this means an error inside the PlogConverter;
'4' - some of the command line arguments passed to the tool were incorrect or one of the files, passed as an argument, hadn't been found, or doesn't exist;

Automatic notification of analyzer warnings

The PVS-Studio distribution includes the BlameNotifier tool, which allows you to notify developers who have committed code in the repository that triggered analyzer warnings. You can also configure notifications about all detected warnings for a specific group of people (this can be useful, for example, for managers and team leads).

The following documentation section describes the ways how to use the BlameNotifier tool: "Notifying the developer teams (blame-notifier utility)".

Note. The blame-notifier tool is available only if you have an Enterprise license. To order the license, please, write to us.

Relative paths in PVS-Studio log files

When generating diagnostic messages, PVS-Studio by default generates absolute, or full, paths to the files where errors have been found. That's why, when saving the report, it's these full paths that get into the resulting file (XML plog file). It may cause some troubles in the future - for example when you need to handle this log file on a different computer. As you know, paths to source files may be different on two computers. This will lead to you being unable to open files and use the integrated mechanism of code navigation in such a log file.

Although this problem can be solved by editing the paths in the XML report manually, it's much more convenient to get the analyzer to generate messages with relative paths right away, i.e. paths specified in relation to some fixed directory (for example, the root directory of the project source files' tree). This way of path generation will allow you to get a log file with correct paths on any other computer - you will only need to change the root in relation to which all the paths in the PVS-Studio log file are expanded. The setting 'SourceTreeRoot' found on the page "PVS-Studio -> Options -> Specific Analyzer Settings" serves to tell PVS-Studio to automatically generate relative paths as described and replace their root with the new one.

Let's have a look at an example of how this mechanism is used. The 'SourceTreeRoot' option's field is empty by default, and the analyzer always generates full paths in its diagnostic messages. Assume that the project being checked is located in the "C:\MyProjects\Project1" directory. We can take the path "C:\MyProjects\" as the root of the project source files' tree and add it into the field 'SourceTreeRoot', and start analysis after that.

Now that analysis is over, PVS-Studio will automatically replace the root directory we've defined with a special marker. It means that in a message for the file "C:\MyProjects\Project1\main.cpp", the path to this file will be defined as "|?|Project1\main.cpp". Messages for the files outside the specified root directory won't be affected. That is, a message for the file "C:\MyCommonLib\lib1.cpp" will contain the absolute path to this file.

In the future, when handling this log file in the IDE PVS-Studio plugin, the marker |?| will be automatically replaced with the value specified in the 'SourceTreeRoot' setting's field - for instance, when using the False Alarm function or message navigation. If you need to handle this log file on another computer, you'll just need to define a new path to the root of the source files' tree (for example, "C:\Users\User\Projects\") in the IDE plugin's settings. The plugin will correctly expand the full paths in automated mode.

This option can also be used in the Independent mode of the analyzer, when it is integrated directly into a build system (make, msbuild, and so on). It will allow you to separate the process of full analysis of source files and further investigation of analysis results, which might be especially helpful when working on a large project. For example, you can perform a one-time complete check of the whole project on the build server, while analysis results will be studied by several developers on their local computers.

You can also use the setting 'UseSolutionDirAsSourceTreeRoot' described on the same page. This setting enables or disables the mode of using the path to the folder, containing the solution file *.sln as a parameter 'SourceTreeRoot'. When this mode is enabled (True), the field 'SourceTreeRoot' will display the value '<Using solution path>'. The actual value of the parameter 'SourceTreeRoot' saved in the settings file does not change. When the setting 'UseSolutionDirAsSourceTreeRoot' is disabled (False), this value (if it was previously set) will be displayed in the field 'SourceTreeRoot' again. Thus, the setting 'UseSolutionDirAsSourceTreeRoot' just changes the mechanism of generating the path to the file, allowing to use 'SourceTreeRoot' as a parameter or a specified value or a path to a folder, containing the solution file.

Viewing Analysis Results with C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI

Introduction
Analyzing source files with the help of the compiler process monitoring system
Incremental analysis when using Compiler Monitoring System
Working with the list of diagnostic messages
Navigation and search in the source code

Introduction

PVS-Studio can be used independently from the Visual Studio IDE. The core of the analyzer is a command-line utility allowing analysis of C/C++ files that can be compiled by Visual C++, GCC, or Clang. For this reason, we developed a standalone application implemented as a shell for the command-line utility and simplifying the work with the analyzer-generated message log.

PVS-Studio provides a convenient plug-in for the Visual Studio environment, allowing "one-click" analysis of this IDE's vcproj/vcxproj-projects. There are, however, a few other build systems out there which we also should provide support for. Although PVS-Studio's analyzer core doesn't depend on any particular format used by this or that build system (such as, for example, MSBuild, GNU Make, NMake, CMake, ninja, and so on), the users would have to carry out a few steps on their own to be able to integrate PVS-Studio's static analysis into a build system other than VCBuild/MSBuild projects supported by Visual Studio. These steps are as follows:

First, the user would need to integrate a call to PVS-Studio.exe directly into the build script (if available) of a particular system. Otherwise, the user will need to modify the build system itself. To learn more about it, read this documentation section. It should be noted right off that this way of using the analyzer is not always convenient or even plausible as the user is not always permitted to modify the build script of the project they are currently working with.
After PVS-Studio's static analysis has been integrated into the build system, the user needs to somehow view and analyze the analyzer's output. This, in its turn, may require creating a special utility to convert the analyzer's log into a format convenient for the user. Note that when you have Visual Studio installed, you can at any time use the PVS-Studio plug-in for this IDE to view the report generated by the analyzer's core.
Finally, when the analyzer finds genuine bugs in the code, the user needs a functionality enabling them to fix those bugs in the source files of the project under analysis.

All these issues can be resolved by using the C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI (Standalone.exe).

Figure 1 - Compiler Monitoring UI

Compiler Monitoring UI enables "seamless" code analysis regardless of the compiler or build system one is using, and then allows you to work with the analysis results through a user interface similar to that implemented in the PVS-Studio plug-in for Visual Studio. The Compiler Monitoring UI also allows the user to work with the analyzer's log obtained through direct integration of the tool into the build system when there is no Visual Studio installed. These features are discussed below.

Analyzing source files with the help of the compiler process monitoring system

Compiler Monitoring UI provides a user interface for a compilation monitoring system. The monitoring system itself (the console utility CLMonitor.exe) can be used independently of the Compiler Monitoring UI - for example when you need to integrate static analysis into an automated build system. To learn more about the use of the compiler monitoring system, see this documentation section.

To start monitoring compiler invocations, open the corresponding dialog: Tools -> Analyze Your Files... (Figure 2):

Figure 2 - Build process monitoring start dialog

Click on "Start Monitoring". After that, CLMonitor.exe will be called while the main window of the tool will be minimized.

Run the build and after it is finished, click on the "Stop Monitoring" button in the window in the bottom right corner of the screen (Figure 3):

Figure 3 - Compiler monitoring dialog

If the monitoring server has successfully tracked the compiler invocations, static analysis will be launched for the source files. When it is finished, you will get a regular PVS-Studio's analysis report (Figure 4):

Figure 4 - Results of the monitoring server's and static analyzer's work

The analysis results can be saved into an XML file (with the plog extension) for further use through the menu command 'File -> Save PVS-Studio Log As...'.

Incremental analysis when using Compiler Monitoring System

The way of performing incremental analysis is the same as the process of the analyzing the whole project. The key difference is the need to implement not a full, but an incremental build of the project. In such a case compilers runs for modified files will be monitored that will allow to check only them. The rest of the analysis process is completely identical to the described above, in the section "Analyzing source files with the help of the compiler process monitoring system".

Working with the list of diagnostic messages

Once you have got the analysis report with the analyzer-generated warnings, you can start viewing the messages and fixing the code. You can also load a report obtained earlier into the Compiler Monitoring UI. To do this, use the menu command 'File|Open PVS-Studio Log...'.

Various message suppression and filtering mechanisms available in this utility are identical to those employed in the Visual Studio plug-in and are available in the settings window 'Tools|Options...' (Figure 5).

Figure 5 - Analysis settings and message filtering mechanisms

In the Analyzer Output window, you can navigate through the analyzer's warnings, mark messages as false positives, and add filters for messages. The message handling interface in the Compiler Monitoring UI is identical to that of the output window in the Visual Studio plug-in. To see a detailed description of the message output window, see this documentation section.

Navigation and search in the source code

Although the built-in editor of the Compiler Monitoring UI does not provide a navigation and autocomplete system as powerful and comfortable as Microsoft IntelliSense in the Visual Studio environment or other similar systems, Compiler Monitoring UI still offers several search mechanisms that can simplify your work with the analysis results.

Besides regular text search in a currently opened file (Ctrl + F), Compiler Monitoring UI also offers the Code Search dialog for text search in opened files and folders of the file system. This dialog can be accessed through the menu command 'Edit|Find & Replace|Search in Source Files...' (Figure 6):

Figure 6 - Search dialog of Compiler Monitoring UI

The dialog supports search in the current file, all of the currently opened files, or any folder of the file system. You can at any moment stop the search by clicking on the Cancel button in the modal window that will show up after the search starts. Once the first match is found, the results will start to be output right away into the child window Code Search Results (Figure 7):

Figure 7 - Results of text search in project source files

Of course, regular text search may be inconvenient or long when you need to find some identifier's or macro's declarations and/or uses. In this case, you can use the mechanism of dependency search and navigation through #include macros.

Dependency search in files allows you to search for a character/macro in those particular files that directly participated in compilation, or to be more exact, in the follow-up preprocessing when being checked by the analyzer. To run the dependency search, click on the character whose uses you want to find to open the context menu (Figure 8):

Figure 8 - Dependency search for a character

The search results, just like with the text search, will be output into a separate child window: 'Find Symbol Results'. You can at any moment stop the search by clicking on the Cancel button in the status bar of the Compiler Monitoring UI main window, near the progress indicator.

Navigation through the #include macros allows you to open in the Compiler Monitoring UI code editor files added into the current file through such a macro. To open an include macro, you also need to use the editor's context menu (Figure 9):

Figure 9 - Navigation through include macros

Keep in mind that information about dependencies is not available for every source file opened in Compiler Monitoring UI. When the dependencies base is not available for the utility, the above mentioned context menu items will be inactive, too.

The dependencies base is created only when analysis is run directly from the Compiler Monitoring UI itself. When opening a random C/C++ source file, the utility won't have this information. Note that when saving the analyzer's output as a plog file, this output having been obtained in the Compiler Monitoring UI itself, a special dpn file, associated with the plog file and containing dependencies of the analyzed files, will be created in the same folder. While present near the plog file, the dpn file enables the dependency search when viewing the plog file in the Compiler Monitoring UI.

Tips on speeding up PVS-Studio

Use a multi-core computer with a large amount of memory
Use an SSD both for the system and the project to be analyzed
Configure (or turn off) your antivirus
In Visual Studio 2010 and 2012, if possible, use Clang as the preprocessor instead of Visual C++ (it can be chosen in the PVS-Studio settings)
Exclude libraries you don't need from analysis (can be set in the PVS-Studio settings)
Conclusion

Any static code analyzer works slower than a compiler. It is determined by the fact that the compiler must work very quickly, though to the detriment of analysis depth. Static analyzers have to store the parse tree to be able to gather more information. Storing the parse tree increases memory consumption, while a lot of checks turn the tree traverse operation into a resource-intensive and slow process. Well, actually it all is not so much crucial, since analysis is a rarer operation than compilation and users can wait a bit. However, we always want our tools to work faster. The article contains tips on how to significantly increase PVS-Studio's speed.

At first let's enumerate all the recommendations so that users learn right away how they can make the analyzer work faster:

Use a multi-core computer with a large amount of memory.
Use an SSD both for the system and the project to be analyzed.
Configure (or turn off) your antivirus.
If possible, use Clang as the preprocessor instead of Visual C++ (it can be chosen in the PVS-Studio settings) in Visual Studio 2010 and 2012.
Exclude libraries you don't need from analysis (can be set in the PVS-Studio settings).

Let's consider all these recommendations in detail, explaining why they allow the tool to work faster.

Use a multi-core computer with a large amount of memory

PVS-Studio has been supporting multi-thread operation for a long time already (starting with version 3.00 released in 2009). Parallelization is performed at the file level. If analysis is run on four cores, the tool is checking four files at a time. This level of parallelism enables you to get a significant performance boost. Judging by our measurements, there is a marked difference between the four-thread and one-thread analysis modes of test projects. One-thread analysis takes 3 hours and 11 minutes, while four-thread analysis takes 1 hour and 11 minutes (these data were obtained on a four-core computer with 8 Gbytes of memory). That is, the difference is 2.7 times.

It is recommended that you have at least one Gbyte of memory for each analyzer's thread. Otherwise (when there are many threads and little memory), the swap file will be used, which will slow down the analysis process. If necessary, you may restrict the number of the analyzer's threads in the PVS-Studio settings: Options -> Common Analyzer Settings -> Thread Count (documentation). By default, the number of threads launched corresponds to the number of cores available in the system.

We recommend that you use a computer with four cores and eight Gbytes of memory or better.

Use an SSD both for the system and the project to be analyzed

Strange as it may seem, a slow hard disk is a bottleneck for the code analyzer's work. But we must explain the mechanism of its work for you to understand why it is so. To analyze a file, the tool must first preprocess it, i.e. expand all the #define's, include all the #include's and so on. The preprocessed file has an average size of 10 Mbytes and is written on the disk into the project folder. Only then the analyzer reads and parses it. The file's size is growing because of that very inclusion of the contents of the #include-files read from the system folders.

I can't give exact results of measuring the influence of an SSD on the analysis speed because you have to test absolutely identical computers with only hard disks different. But visually the speed-up is great.

Configure (or turn off) your antivirus

Judging by the character of its work, the analyzer is a complex and suspicious program from the viewpoint of an antivirus. Let's specify right away that we don't mean that the analyzer is recognized as a virus - we check this regularly. Besides, we use a code certificate signature. Let's go back to description of the code analyzer's work.

For each file being analyzed a separate analyzer's process is run (the PVS-Studio.exe module). If a project contains 3000 files, the same number of PVS-Studio.exe's instances will be launched. PVS-Studio.exe calls Visual C++ environment variable setting (files vcvars*.bat) for its purposes. It also creates a lot of preprocessed files (*.i) (one for each file being compiled) for the time of its work. Auxiliary command (.cmd) files are being used.

Although all these actions are not a virus activity, it still makes any antivirus spend many resources on meaningless check of the same things.

We recommend that you add the following exceptions in the antivirus's settings:

Do not scan system folders with Visual Studio:
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0
- etc.
Do not scan the PVS-Studio folder:
- C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio
Do not scan the project folder:
- For example, C:\Users\UserName\Documents\MyProject
Do not scan Visual Studio .exe files:
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe
- etc.
Do not scan the cl.exe compiler's .exe files (of different versions):
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\bin\cl.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\bin\x86_amd64\cl.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\bin\amd64\cl.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\cl.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\x86_amd64\cl.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\VC\bin\amd64\cl.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\bin\cl.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\bin\x86_amd64\cl.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\bin\amd64\cl.exe
- etc.
Do not scan PVS-Studio and Clang .exe files (of different versions):
- C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\x86\PVS-Studio.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\x86\clang.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\x64\PVS-Studio.exe
- C:\Program Files (x86)\PVS-Studio\x64\clang.exe

Perhaps this list is too excessive but we give it in this complete form so that you know regardless of a particular antivirus what files and processes do not need to be scanned.

Sometimes there can be no antivirus at all (for instance, on a computer intended specially to build code and run a code analyzer). In this case the speed will be the highest. Even if you have specified the above mentioned exceptions in your antivirus, it still will spend some time on scanning them.

Our test measurements show that an aggressive antivirus might slow down the code analyzer's work twice or more.

In Visual Studio 2010 and 2012, if possible, use Clang as the preprocessor instead of Visual C++ (it can be chosen in the PVS-Studio settings)

An external preprocessor is being used to preprocess source files before PVS-Studio analysis. When working from under Visual Studio IDE, the native Microsoft Visual C++ preprocessor, cl.exe, is used by default. In 4.50 version of PVS-Studio, the support for the Clang independent preprocessor had been added, as it lacks some of the Microsoft's preprocessor shortcomings (although it also possesses issues of its own).

In some of the older versions of Visual Studio (namely, 2010 and 2012), the cl.exe preprocessor is significantly slower than clang. Using Clang preprocessor with these IDEs provides an increase of operational performance by 1.5-1.7 times in most cases.

However, there is an aspect that should be considered. The preprocessor to be used can be specified from within the 'PVS-Studio|Options|Common Analyzer Settings|Preprocessor' field (documentation). The available options are: VisualCPP, Clang and VisualCPPAfterClang. The first two of these are self-evident. The third one indicates that Clang will be used at first, and if preprocessing errors are encountered, the same file will be preprocessed by the Visual C++ preprocessor instead.

If your project is analyzed with Clang without any problems, you may use the default option VisualCPPAfterClang or Clang - it doesn't matter. But if your project can be checked only with Visual C++, you'd better specify this option so that the analyzer doesn't launch Clang in vain trying to preprocess your files.

Exclude libraries you don't need from analysis (can be set in the PVS-Studio settings)

Any large software project uses a lot of third-party libraries such as zlib, libjpeg, Boost, etc. Sometimes these libraries are built separately, and in this case the main project has access only to the header and library (lib) files. And sometimes libraries are integrated very firmly into a project and virtually become part of it. In this case the main project is compiled together with the code files of these libraries.

The PVS-Studio analyzer can be set to not check code of third-party libraries: even if there are some errors there, you most likely won't fix them. But if you exclude such folders from analysis, you can significantly enhance the analysis speed in general.

It is also reasonable to exclude code that surely will not be changed for a long time from analysis.

To exclude some folders or separate files from analysis use the PVS-Studio settings -> Don't Check Files (documentation).

To exclude folders you can specify in the folder list either one common folder like c:\external-libs, or list some of the folders: c:\external-libs\zlib, c:\external-libs\libjpeg, etc. You can specify a full path, a relative path or a mask. For example, you can just specify zlib and libjpeg in the folder list - this will be automatically considered as a folder with mask *zlib* and *libjpeg*. To learn more, please see the documentation.

Conclusion

Let's once again list the methods of speeding up PVS-Studio:

Use a multi-core computer with a large amount of memory.
Use an SSD both for the system and the project to be analyzed (Update: for PVS-Studio versions 5.22 and above, deploying the project itself on SSD does not improve the overall analysis time).
Configure (or turn off) your antivirus.
If possible, use Clang as the preprocessor instead of Visual C++ (it can be chosen in the PVS-Studio settings) in Visual Studio 2010 and 2012.
Exclude libraries you don't need from analysis (can be set in the PVS-Studio settings).

The greatest effect can be achieved when applying a maximum number of these recommendations simultaneously.

PVS-Studio: Troubleshooting

The basic PVS-Studio's operation principles you should know
I can't check a file/project with the IDE PVS-Studio plugin
Source files are preprocessed incorrectly when running analysis from the IDE plugin. Error V008
IDE plugin crashes and generates the 'PVS-Studio internal error' message
Unhandled IDE crash when utilizing PVS-Studio
PVS-Studio.exe crash
The V001/V003 errors
The analyzer cannot locate errors in an incorrect code or generates too many false positives
Issues with handling PVS-Studio analysis report from within the IDE plugin
Code analysis running from the IDE plugin is slow. Not all the logical processors are being utilized
I get the message "Files with C or C++ source code for analysis not found." when checking a group of projects or one C/C++ project
Errors of the "Cannot open include file", "use the /MD switch for _AFXDLL builds" kinds on projects that could be successfully compiled in Visual Studio. Insertion of incorrect precompiled headers during preprocessing
'PVS-Studio is unable to continue due to IDE being busy' message under Windows 8. 'Library not registered' errors

The basic PVS-Studio's operation principles you should know

PVS-Studio is composed of 2 basic components: the command-line analyzer (PVS-Studio.exe) and an IDE plugin through which the former is integrated into one of the supported development environments (Microsoft Visual Studio). The way command-line analyzer operates is quite similar to that of a compiler, that is, each file being analyzed is assigned to a separate analyzer instance that, in turn, is called with parameters which, in particular, include the original compilation arguments of the source file itself. Afterwards, the analyzer invokes a required preprocessor (also in accordance with the one that is used to compile the file being analyzed) and then analyzes the resulting temporary preprocessed file, i.e. the file in which all of the include and define directives were expanded.

Thus, the command-line analyzer - just like a compiler (for example Visual C++ cl.exe compiler) - is not designed to be used directly by the end user. To continue with the analogy, compilers in most cases are employed indirectly, through a special build system. Such a build system prepares launch parameters for each of the file to be built and also usually optimizes the building process by parallelizing it among all the available logic processors. The IDE PVS-Studio plugin operates in a similar fashion.

However, IDE plug-in is not the only method for the employment of PVS-Studio.exe command line analyzer. As mentioned above, the command-line analyzer is very similar to a compiler regarding its usage principles. Therefore, it can be directly integrated, if necessary, into a build system along with a compiler. This way of using the tool may be convenient when dealing with a build scenario which is not supported by PVS-Studio - for example, when utilizing a custom-made build system or an IDE other than Visual Studio. Note that PVS-Studio.exe supports analysis of source files intended to be compiled with gcc, clang, and cl compilers (including the support for specific keywords and constructs).

For instance, if you build your project in the Eclipse IDE with gcc, you can integrate PVS-Studio into your makefile build scripts. The only restriction is that PVS-Studio.exe can only operate under Windows NT operating systems family.

Besides IDE plugins, our distribution kit also includes a plugin for the Microsoft MSBuild build system which is utilized by Visual C++ projects in the Visual Studio IDE starting with version 2010. Don't confuse it with the plugin for the Visual Studio IDE itself!

Thus, you can analyze projects in Visual Studio (version 2010 or higher) in two different ways: either directly through our IDE plugin, or by integrating the analysis process into the build system (through the plugin for MSBuild). Of course, nothing prevents you, if the need arises, from creating your own static analysis plugin, be it for MSBuild or any other build system, or even integrating PVS-Studio.exe's call directly, if possible, into build scripts like in the case of makefile-based ones.

I can't check a file/project with the IDE PVS-Studio plugin

If PVS-Studio plug-in generates the message "C/C++ source code was not found" for your file, make sure that the file you are trying to analyze is included into the project for the build (PVS-Studio ignores files excluded from the build). If you get this message on the whole project, make sure that the type of your C/C++ project is supported by the analyzer. In Visual Studio, PVS-Studio supports only Visual C++ projects for versions 2005 and higher, as well as their corresponding MSBuild Platform Toolsets. Project extensions using other compilers (for example projects for the C++ compiler by Intel) or build parameters (Windows DDK drivers) are not supported. Despite the fact that the command-line analyzer PVS-Studio.exe in itself supports analysis of the source code intended for the gcc/clang compilers, IDE project extensions utilizing these compilers are not supported.

If your case is not covered by the ones described above, please contact our support service. If it is possible, please send us the temporary configuration files for the files you are having troubles with. You can get them by setting the option 'PVS-Studio -> Options -> Common Analyzer Settings -> Remove Intermediate Files' to 'False'. After that, the files with the name pattern %SourceFilename.cpp%.PVS-Studio.cfg will appear in the same directory where your project file (.vcxproj) is located. If possible, create an empty test project reproducing your issue and send it to us as well.

Source files are preprocessed incorrectly when running analysis from the IDE plugin. Error V008

If, having checked your file/project, PVS-Studio generates the V008 message and/or a preprocessor error message (by clang/cl preprocessors) in the results window, make sure that the file(s) you are trying to analyze can be compiled without errors. PVS-Studio requires compilable C/C++ source files to be able to operate properly, while linking errors do not matter.

The V008 error means that preprocessor returned a non-zero exit code after finishing its work. The V008 message is usually accompanied by a message generated by a preprocessor itself describing the reason for the error (for example, it failed to find an include file). Note that, for the purpose of optimization, our Visual Studio IDE plugin utilizes a special dual-preprocessing mode: it will first try to preprocess the file with the faster clang preprocessor and then, in case of a failure (clang doesn't support certain Visual C++ specific constructs), launches the standard cl.exe preprocessor. If you get clang's preprocessing errors, try setting the plugin to use only the cl.exe preprocessor (PVS-Studio -> Options -> Common Analyzer Settings -> Preprocessor).

If you are sure that your files can be correctly built by the IDE/build system, perhaps the reason for the issue is that some compilation parameters are incorrectly passed into the PVS-Studio.exe analyzer. In this case, please contact our support service and send us the temporary configuration files for these files. You can get them by setting the option 'PVS-Studio -> Options -> Common Analyzer Settings -> Remove Intermediate Files' to 'False'. After that, files with the name pattern %SourceFilename.cpp%.PVS-Studio.cfg will appear in the same directory where your project file is located. If possible, create an empty test project reproducing your issue and send it to us as well.

IDE plugin crashes and generates the 'PVS-Studio internal error' message

If plugin crashes and generates the dialog box entitled 'PVS-Studio Internal Error', please contact our support service and send us the analyzer's crash stack (you can obtain it from the crash dialog box).

If the issue occurs regularly, then please send us the plugin's trace log together with the crash stack. You can obtain the trace log by enabling the tracing mode through the 'PVS-Studio -> Options -> Specific Analyzer Settings -> TraceMode (Verbose mode)' setting. The trace log will be saved into the default user directory Application Data\Roaming\PVS-Studio under the name PVSTracexxxx_yyy.log, where xxxx is PID of the process devenv.exe / bds.exe, while yyy is the log number for this process.

Unhandled IDE crash when utilizing PVS-Studio

If you encounter regular crashes of your IDE which are presumably caused by PVS-Studio's operation, please check the Windows system event logs (in the Event Viewer) and contact our support service to provide us with the crash signature and stack (if available) for the application devenv.exe \ bds.exe (the 'Error' message level) which can be found in the Windows Logs -> Application list.

PVS-Studio.exe crash

If you encounter regular unhandled crashes of the PVS-Studio.exe analyzer, please repeat the steps described in the section "IDE crashes when PVS-Studio is running", but for the PVS-Studio.exe process.

The V001/V003 errors

The error V003 actually means that PVS-Studio.exe has failed to check the file because of a handled internal exception. If you discover V003 error messages in the analyzer log, please send us an intermediate file (an i-file containing all the expanded include and define directives) generated by the preprocessor for the file that triggers the v003 error (you can find its name in the file field). You can get this file by setting the 'PVS-Studio -> Options -> Common Analyzer Settings -> Remove Intermediate Files' option to 'False'. Intermediate files with the name pattern SourceFileName.i will appear, after restarting the analysis, in the directory of the project that you are checking (i.e. in the same directory where the vcproj/vcxproj/cbproj files are located).

The analyzer may sometimes fail to perform a complete analysis of a source file. It is not always the analyzer's fault - see the documentation section on the V001 error to learn more about this issue. No matter what was the cause of a V001 message, it is usually not critical. Incomplete file parsing is insignificant from the analysis viewpoint. PVS-Studio simply skips a function/class with an error and continues with the analysis. It's only a very small portion of code which is left unchecked. If this portion contains fragments you consider relevant, you may send us an i-file for this source file as well.

The analyzer cannot locate errors in an incorrect code or generates too many false positives

If it seems to you that the analyzer fails to find errors in a code fragment that surely contains them or, on the contrary, generates false positives for a code fragment which you believe to be correct, please send us the preprocessor's temporary file. You can get it by setting the 'PVS-Studio -> Options -> Common Analyzer Settings -> Remove Intermediate Files' option to 'False'. Intermediate files with the name pattern SourceFileName.i will appear, after you restart the analysis, in the directory of the project you are checking (i.e. in the same directory where ycproj/vcxproj/cbproj files are located). Please attach the source file's code fragment that you have issues with as well.

We will consider adding a diagnostic rule for your sample or revise the current diagnostics to reduce the number of false positives in your code.

Issues with handling PVS-Studio analysis report from within the IDE plugin

If you encounter any issues when handling the analyzer-generated log file within the window of our IDE plugin, namely: navigation on the analyzed source files is performed incorrectly and/or these files are not available for navigation at all; false positive markers or comments are added in wrong places of your code, and the like - please contact our support service to provide us with the plugin's trace log. You can get it by enabling the tracing mode through the 'PVS-Studio -> Options -> Specific Analyzer Settings -> TraceMode' option (Verbose mode). The trace log will be saved into the default user directory Application Data\Roaming\PVS-Studio under the name PVSTracexxxx_yyy.log, where xxxx is PID of the devenv.exe / bds.exe process, while yyy is the log number for this process.

Also, if it is possible, create an empty test project reproducing your trouble and attach it to the letter too.

Code analysis running from the IDE plugin is slow. Not all the logical processors are being utilized

The PVS-Studio plugin can parallelize code analysis at the level of source files, that is, you can have analysis for any files you need to check (even within one project) running in parallel. The plugin by default sets the number of threads into which the analysis process is parallelized according to the number of processors in your system. You may change this number through the option PVS-Studio -> Options -> Common Analyzer Settings -> ThreadCount.

If it seems to you that not all of the available logical processors in your system are being utilized, you can increase the number of threads used for parallel analysis. But keep in mind that static analysis, unlike compilation, requires a large amount of memory: each analyzer instance needs about 1.5 Gbytes.

If your system, even though possessing a multi-core processor, doesn't meet these requirements, you may encounter a sharp performance degradation caused by the analyzer having to rely on a swap file. In this case, we recommend you to reduce the number of parallel threads of the analyzer to meet the requirement of 1.5 Gbytes per thread, even if this number is smaller than the number of processor cores in your system.

Keep in mind that when you have many concurrent threads, your HDD, which stores temporary preprocessed *.i files, may become a bottleneck itself, as these files may grow in size quite quickly. One of the methods to significantly reduce the analysis time is to utilize SSD disks or a RAID array.

A performance loss may also be caused by poorly configured antivirus software. Because the PVS-Studio plugin launches quite a large number of analyzer and the cmd.exe instances, your antivirus may find this behavior suspicious. To optimize the analysis time, we recommend you to add PVS-Studio.exe, as well as all of the related directories, to the exceptions list of your antivirus or disable real-time protection while the analysis is running.

If you happen to utilize the Security Essentials antivirus (which has become a part of Windows Defender starting with Windows 8), you may face a sharp performance degradation on certain projects/configurations. Please refer to this article on our blog for details concerning this issue.

I get the message "Files with C or C++ source code for analysis not found." when checking a group of projects or one C/C++ project

Projects excluded from the general build in the Configuration Manager window of the Visual Studio environment are not analyzed.

For the PVS-Studio analyzer to analyze C/C++ projects correctly, they must be compilable in Visual C++ and buildable without errors. That's why when checking a group of projects or an individual project, PVS-Studio will check only those projects which are included into the general build.

Projects excluded from the build won't be analyzed. If none of the projects is included into the build or you try to analyze one project that was not included into the build, the message "Files with C or C++ source code for analysis not found" will be generated, and analysis won't start. Use the Configuration Manager for the current Visual Studio solution to see which projects are included and which are excluded from the general build.

Errors of the "Cannot open include file", "use the /MD switch for _AFXDLL builds" kinds on projects that could be successfully compiled in Visual Studio. Insertion of incorrect precompiled headers during preprocessing

If you are encountering errors with missing includes, incorrect compiler switches (for example, the /MD switch) or macros while running static analysis on a project which can be compiled in Visual Studio IDE without such errors, then it is possible that this behavior is a manifestation of an incorrect precompiled header files being inserted during the preprocessing.

This issue arises because of the divergent behavior of Visual C++ compiler (cl.exe) in its' compiler and preprocessor modes. During a normal build, the compiler operates in the "regular" mode (i.e. the compilation results in the object, binary files). However, to perform static analysis, PVS-Studio invokes the compiler in the preprocessor mode. In this mode the compiler performs the expansion of macros and include directives.

But, when the compiled file utilizes a precompiled header, the compiler will use a header itself when it encounters the #include directive. It will use the previously generated pch file instead. However, in the preprocessing mode, the compiler will ignore the precompiled pch entirely and will try expanding such #include in a "regular way", i.e. by inserting the contents of the header file in question.

It is a common practice to use precompiled headers with the same name in multiple projects (the most common one being stdafx.h). This, because of the disparities in the compiler behavior described earlier, often leads to the header from an incorrect project being included into the source file. There are several reasons why this can happen. For example, a correct pch is specified for a file, but the Includes contain several paths containing several different stdafx.h files, and the incorrect one possesses a higher priority for being included (that is, its' include path occurs earlier on the compiler's command line). Another possible scenario is the one in which several projects include the same C++ source file. This file could be built with different options in different projects, and it uses the different pch files as well. But since this is just a single file in your file system, one of the stdafx.h files from one of the projects it is included into could be located in the same directory as the source file itself. And if the stdafx.h is included into this source file by the #include directive using the quotes, then the preprocessor will always use the header file from the same directory as this file, regardless of the includes passed through the command line.

Insertion of the incorrect precompiled header file will not always lead to the preprocessing errors. However, if one of the projects, for example, utilized MFC, and the other one is not, ore the projects possess a different set of Includes, the precompiled headers will be incompatible, and one of the preprocessing errors described in the title of this section will occur. As a result, you will not be able to perform static analysis on such a file.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to bypass this issue on the analyzer's side, as it concerns the external preprocessor, that is, the cl.exe. If you are encountering it on one of your projects, then it is possible to solve it by one of the methods described below, depending on the causes that lead to it.

In case the precompiled header was incorrectly inserted because of the position of its' include path on the compiler's command line, you can simply move a path for the correct header file to the first position on the command line.

If the incorrect header file was inserted because of its' location in the same directory as the source file into which it is included, then you can use the #include directive with pointy brackets, for example:

#include <stdafx.h>

While using this form, the compiler will ignore the files form the current directory when it performs the insertion.

'PVS-Studio is unable to continue due to IDE being busy' message under Windows 8. 'Library not registered' errors

When checking large (more than 1000 source files) projects with PVS-Studio under Windows 8, while using Visual Studio 2010 or newer versions, sometimes the errors of the 'Library not registered' kind can appear or analyzer can even halt the analysis process altogether with 'PVS-Studio is unable to continue due to IDE being busy' message.

Such errors can be caused by several factors: incorrect installation of Visual Studio and compatibility conflicts between different versions of IDE present within a system. Even if your system currently possesses a single IDE installation, but a different version was present in the past, it is possible that this previous version was uninstalled incorrectly or incompletely. In particular, the compatibility conflict can arise from simultaneously having installations of one of Visual Studio 2010\2012\2013\2015\2017\2019 and Visual Studio 2005 and\or 2008 on your system.

Unfortunately, PVS-Studio is unable to 'work around' these issues by itself, as they are caused by conflicts in COM interfaces, which are utilized by Visual Studio API. If you are one of such issues, then you have several different ways of dealing with it. Using PVS-Studio under a system with a 'clean' Visual Studio installation should resolve the issue. However, if it not an option, you can try analyzing your project in several go's, part by part. It is also worth noting that the issue at hand most often arises in the situation when PVS-Studio performs analysis simultaneously with some other IDE background operation (for example, when IntelliSense performs #include parsing). If you wait for this background operation to finish, then it will possibly allow you to analyze your whole project.

Another option is to use alternative methods of running the analyzer to check your files. You can check any project by using the compiler monitoring mode from C and C++ Compiler Monitoring UI (Standalone.exe).

After installing Visual Studio IDE on a machine with a previously installed PVS-Studio analyzer, the newly installed Visual Studio version lacks the 'PVS-Studio' menu item

Unfortunately, the specifics of Visual Studio extensibility implementation prevents PVS-Studio from automatically 'picking up' newly installed Visual Studio in case it happened after the installation of PVS-Studio itself.

Here is an example of such a situation. Let's assume that before the installation of PVS-Studio, the machine have only Visual Studio 2013 installed on it. After installing the analyzer, Visual Studio 2013 menu will contain the 'PVS-Studio' item (if the corresponding option was selected during the installation), which allows you to check your projects in this IDE. Now, if Visual Studio 2015 is installed on this machine next (after PVS-Studio was already installed), the menu of this IDE version will not contain 'PVS-Studio' item.

In order to add analyzer IDE integration to the newly installed Visual Studio, it is necessary to re-launch PVS-Studio installer (PVS-Studio_Setup.exe file). If you do not have this file already, you can download it from our site. The checkbox besides the required IDE version on the Visual Studio selection installer page will be enabled after the corresponding Visual Studio version is installed.

Additional diagnostics configuration

How to tell the analyzer that a function can or cannot return nullptr
How to Set Your Level for Specific Diagnostics
Changing an output message's text
Configuration of the assert() macro handling
How to specify an alias for a system function

How to tell the analyzer that a function can or cannot return nullptr

There are many system functions, such as malloc, realloc, and calloc, that return a null pointer in certain conditions. They return NULL when they fail to allocate a buffer of the specified size.

Sometimes you may want to change the analyzer's behavior and make it think, for example, that malloc cannot return NULL. This can be done by using the system libraries, where 'out of memory' errors are handled in a specific way.

An opposite scenario is also possible. You may want to help the analyzer by telling it that a certain system or user-made function can return a null pointer.

To help you with that, we added a mechanism that allows you to use special comments to tell the analyzer that a certain function can or cannot return NULL.

V_RET_NULL - the function can return a null pointer
V_RET_NOT_NULL - the function cannot return a null pointer

Comment format:

//V_RET_[NOT]_NULL, namespace:Space, class:Memory, function:my_malloc

function option - specifies the name of the function that can(not) return NULL.
class option - class name; optional.
namespace option - namespace name; optional.

The controlling comment can be written next to the function declaration.

However , you cannot do this for such functions as malloc because changing system header files is a bad idea.

A possible way out is to add the comment to one of the global headers included into each of the translation units. If you work in Visual Studio, the file stdafx.h would be a good choice.

Another solution is to use the diagnostic configuration file pvsconfig. See "Suppression of false alarms" (section "Mass suppression of false positives through diagnostic configuration files (pvsconfig)").

This is illustrated by the two examples below.

The function does not return NULL:

//V_RET_NOT_NULL, function:malloc

Now the analyzer thinks that the malloc function cannot return NULL and, therefore, will not issue the V522 warning for the following code:

int *p = (int *)malloc(sizeof(int) * 100);
p[0] = 12345; // ok

The function returns a pointer that could be null:

//V_RET_NULL, namesapce:Memory, function:QuickAlloc

With this comment, the following code will be triggering the warning:

char *p = Memory::QuickAlloc(strlen(src) + 1);
strcpy(p, src); // Warning!

In projects with special quality requirements, you might need to find all functions, returning a pointer. To do this, you can use the following comment:

//V_RET_NULL_ALL

We don't recommend using this mode because of issuing a large number of warnings. But if it's really needed in your project, you can use this special comment to add in code a check of a returned pointer for all such functions.

How to Set Your Level for Specific Diagnostics

Analyzer warnings are of three levels of certainty: High, Medium, Low. Depending on the used constructs in code the analyzer estimates the certainty of warnings and assigns them an appropriate level in a report. Some warnings may be issued simultaneously on several levels.

In some projects, search for specific types of errors can be very important, regardless of the level of warning certainty. Sometimes there can be a reverse situation, when the error messages are of little use, but a programmer does not want to disable them at all. In such cases, you can manually set the diagnostics level of High/Medium/Low. To do this, you should use the special comments that can be added in code or the diagnostics configuration file. Examples of comments:

//V_LEVEL_1::501,502
//V_LEVEL_2::522,783,579
//V_LEVEL_3::773

Finding such comments, the analyzer issue warnings at the specified level.

Changing an output message's text

You can specify that one or more entities should be replaced with some other one(s) in certain messages. This enables the analyzer to generate warnings taking into account the project's specifics. The control comment has the following format:

//+Vnnn:RENAME:{Aaaa:Bbbb},{<foo.h>:<myfoo.h>},{100:200},......

In all the messages Vnnn, the following replacements will be done:

Aaaa will be replaced with Bbbb.
<foo.h> will be replaced with <myfoo.h>.
The number 100 will be replaced with 200.

The working principle of this mechanism is best to be explained by an example.

When coming across the number 3.1415 in code, the V624 diagnostic suggests replacing it with M_PI from the <math.h> library. But suppose our project uses a special math library and it is this library that we should use mathematical constants from. So the programmer may add the following comment in a global file (for example StdAfx.h):

//+V624:RENAME:{M_PI:OUR_PI},{<math.h>:"math/MMath.h"}

After that the analyzer will be warning that the OUR_PI constant from the header file "math/MMath.h" should be used.

You can also extend messages generated by PVS-Studio. The control comment has the following format:

//+Vnnn:ADD:{ Message}

The string specified by the programmer will be added to the end of every message with the number Vnnn.

Take diagnostic V2003, for example. The message associated with it is: "V2003 - Explicit conversion from 'float/double' type to signed integer type.". You can reflect some specifics of the project in the message and extend it by adding the following comment:

//+V2003:ADD:{ Consider using boost::numeric_cast instead.}

From now on, the analyzer will be generating a modified message: "V2003 - Explicit conversion from 'float/double' type to signed integer type. Consider using boost::numeric_cast instead.".

Configuration of the assert() macro handling

The analyzer equally checks the code where the assert() macro is presented regardless of the configuration of the project (Debug, Release, ...) and specifically doesn't take into account that the execution of the code is interrupted when having the false condition.

To set another analyzer behavior, use the following comment in code:

//V_ASSERT_CONTRACT

Note that in such a mode the analysis results may differ depending on the way the macro is expanded in the checked project configuration.

Let's look at this example to make it clear:

MyClass *p = dynamic_cast<MyClass *>(x);
assert(p);
p->foo();

The dynamic_cast operator can return the nullptr value. Thus, in the standard mode the analyzer will issue the warning that when calling the function foo(), null pointer dereference might occur.

But if we use the comment, the warning will be gone.

You can also use the assertMacro option to specify names of macros which the analyzer will handle in the same way it handles assert:

//V_ASSERT_CONTRACT, assertMacro:MY_CUSTOM_MACRO_NAME
MyClass *p = dynamic_cast<MyClass *>(x);
MY_CUSTOM_MACRO_NAME(p);
p->foo();

In order to specify several macro names, you need to add a separate V_ASSERT_CONTRACT comment for each of them.

How to specify an alias for a system function

Some projects use custom implementations of various system functions, such as memcpy, malloc, and so on. In this case, the analyzer doesn't understand that such functions behave in the same way as their standard analogues. Using the V_FUNC_ALIAS annotation, you can specify which custom functions correspond to which system ones.

Comment format:

//V_FUNC_ALIAS, implementation:sysf, function:f, namespace:ns, class:c

implementation option - name of the system function for which an alias will be specified.
function option - alias name. The function specified in this option must have exactly the same signature as the one specified in the implementation option.
class option - class name; optional.
namespace option - namespace name; optional.

Consider this example:

//V_FUNC_ALIAS, implementation:memcpy, function:MyMemCpy

Now, the analyzer will process calls to the MyMemCpy function in the same way it processes calls to memcpy. For example, this code snippet will trigger the V512 warning:

int buf[] = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
int out[2];
MyMemCpy (out, buf, 4 * sizeof(int)); // Warning!

Predefined PVS_STUDIO macro

Among the numerous filtration and message suppression methods of PVS-Studio analyzer is the PVS_STUDIO predefined macro.

The first case when it might come in handy is when one wants to prevent some code from getting in the analyzer for a check. For example, the analyzer generates a diagnostic message for the following code:

  int rawArray[5];
  rawArray[-1] = 0;

However, if you will 'wrap' it using this macro the message will not be generated.

  int rawArray[5];
#ifndef PVS_STUDIO
  rawArray[-1] = 0;
#endif

The PVS_STUDIO macro is automatically inserted while checking the code from the IDE. But if you are using PVS-Studio from the command line, the macro will not be passed by default to the analyzer and this should be done manually.

The second case is the override of the default and custom macros. For example, for the following code a warning will be generated about dereference of a potentially null pointer:

char *st = (char*)malloc(10);
TEST_MACRO(st != NULL);
st[0] = '\0'; //V522

To tell the analyzer that the execution of the program gets interrupted with certain conditions, you can override the macro in the following way:

#ifdef PVS_STUDIO
#undef TEST_MACRO
#define TEST_MACRO(expr) if (!(expr)) throw "PVS-Studio";
#endif

char *st = (char*)malloc(10);
TEST_MACRO(st != NULL);
st[0] = '\0';

This method allows to remove the analyzer warnings on the code checked using different libraries, as well as on any other macros that are used for debugging and testing.

See the discussion "Mark variable as not NULL after BOOST_REQUIRE in PVS-Studio" on StackOverflow.com site.

PVS_STUDIO macro will be automatically substituted when checking code from IDE. If you use the code check from the command line, macro is not passed to the analyzer by default, and it should be done manually.

Settings: General

When developing PVS-Studio we assigned primary importance to the simplicity of use. We took into account our experience of working with traditional lint-like code analyzers. And that is why one of the main advantages of PVS-Studio over other code analyzers is that you can start using it immediately. Besides, PVS-Studio has been designed in such a way that the developer using the analyzer would not have to set it up at all. We managed to solve this task: a developer has a powerful code analyzer which you need not to set up at the first launch.

But you should understand that the code analyzer is a powerful tool which needs competent use. It is this competent use of the analyzer (thanks to the settings system) that allows you to achieve significant results. Operation of the code analyzer implies that there should be a tool (a program) which performs routine work of searching potentially unsafe constructions in code and a master (a developer) who can make decisions on the basis of what he knows about the project being verified. Thus, for example, the developer can inform the analyzer that:

some error types are not important for analysis and do not need to be shown (with the help of settings of Settings: Detectable Errors);
the project does not contain incorrect type conversions (by disabling the corresponding diagnostic messages, Settings: Detectable Errors);

Correct setting of these parameters can greatly reduce the number of diagnostic messages produced by the code analyzer. It means that if the developer helps the analyzer and gives it some additional information by using the settings, the analyzer will in its turn reduce the number of places in the code which the developer must pay attention to when examining the analysis results.

PVS-Studio setting can be accessed through the PVS-Studio -> Options command in the IDE main menu. When selecting this command you will see the dialogue of PVS-Studio options.

Each settings page is extensively described in PVS-Studio documentation.

Settings: Common Analyzer Settings

Check For New Versions
Thread Count
Remove Intermediate Files

The tab of the analyzer's general settings displays the settings which do not depend on the particular analysis unit being used.

Check For New Versions

The analyzer can automatically check for updates on viva64.com site. It uses our update module.

If the CheckForNewVersions option is set to True, a special text file is downloaded from viva64.com site when you launch code checking (the commands Check Current File, Check Current Project, Check Solution in PVS-Studio menu). This file contains the number of the latest PVS-Studio version available on the site. If the version on the site is newer than the version installed on the user computer, the user will be asked for a permission to update the program. If the user agrees, a special separate application PVS-Studio-Updater will be launched that will automatically download and install the new PVS-Studio distribution kit. If the option CheckForNewVersions is set to False, it will not check for the updates.

Thread Count

Analysis of files is performed faster on multi-core computers. Thus, on a 4-core computer the analyzer can use all the four cores for its operation. But, if for some reason, you need to limit the number of cores being used, you can do this by selecting the required number. The number of processor cores will be used as a default value.

Setting the value of 'ThreadCount' option to more than '16' (or more than a number of processor cores, if processor possesses more than 16 cores) is available only in PVS-Studio Enterprise license. Please contact us to order a license.

When running analysis on a single system, we do not advise setting the value of this option greater, than the number of processor cores available. Setting the value larger than the number of cores could degrade the overall analyzer performance. If you wish to run more analysis tasks concurrently, you can use a distributed build system, for example, IncrediBuild. More detailed description of this mode of using PVS-Studio is described in the relevant section of documentation.

Remove Intermediate Files

The analyzer creates a lot of temporary command files for its operation to launch the analysis unit itself, to perform preprocessing and to manage the whole process of analysis. Such files are created for each project file being analyzed. Usually they are not of interest for a user and are removed after the analysis process. But in some cases it can be useful to look through these files. So you can indicate to the analyzer not to remove them. In this case you can launch the analyzer outside the IDE from the command line.

Settings: Detectable Errors

This settings page allows you to manage the displaying of various types of PVS-Studio messages in the analysis results list.

All the diagnostic messages output by the analyzer are split into several groups. The display (show/hide) of each message type can be handled individually, while the following actions are available for a whole message group:

Disabled – to completely disable an entire message group. Errors from this group will not be displayed in the analysis results list (PVS-Studio output window). Enabling the group again will require to re-run an analysis;
Show All – to show all the messages of a group in the analysis results list;
Hide All – to hide all the messages of a group in the analysis results list.

It may be sometimes useful to hide errors with certain codes in the list. For instance, if you know for sure that errors with the codes V505 and V506 are irrelevant for your project, you can hide them in the list by unticking the corresponding checkboxes.

Please mind that you don't need to relaunch the analysis when using the options "Show All" and "Hide All"! The analyzer always generates all the message types found in the project, while whether they should be shown or hidden in the list is defined by the settings on this page. When enabling/disabling error displaying, they will be shown/hidden in the analysis results list right away, without you having to re-analyze the whole project.

Complete disabling of message groups can be used to enhance the analyzer's performance and get the analysis reports (plog-files) of smaller sizes.

Settings: Don't Check Files

You may specify file masks to exclude some of the files or folders from analysis on the tab "Don't Check Files". The analyzer will not check those files that meet the masks' conditions.

Using this technique, you may, for instance, exclude autogenerated files from the analysis. Besides, you may define the files to be excluded from analysis by the name of the folder they are located in.

A mask is defined with the help of wild card match types. The '*' (any number of any characters) wild card can be used, the '?' symbol is not supported.

The case of a character is irrelevant. The '*' wildcard character could only be inserted at the beginning or at the end of the mask, therefore the masks of the 'a*b' kind are not supported. After exclusion masks were specified, the messages from files corresponding to these masks should disappear from PVS-Studio Output window, and the next time then analysis is started these files will be excluded from it. Thereby the total time of the entire project's analysis could be substantially decreased by excluding files and directories with these masks.

2 types of masks could be specified: the Path masks and the File name masks. The masks specified from within the FileNameMasks list are used to filter messages by the names of the corresponding files only and ignoring these files' location. The masks from the PathMasks list, on the other hand, are used to filter messages by taking into account their location within the filesystem on the disk and could be used to suppress diagnostics either from the single file or even from the whole directories and subdirectories. To filter the messages from one specific file, the full path to it should be added to the PathMasks list, but to filter files sharing the same name (or with the names complying to the wildcard mask), such names or masks should be inserted into the FileNameMask list.

Valid masks examples for the FileNameMask property:

*ex.c — all files with the names ending with "ex" characters and "c" extension will be excluded.

*.cpp — all files possessing the "cpp" extension will be excluded

stdafx.cpp — every file possessing such name will be excluded from analysis regardless of its location within the filesystem

Valid masks examples for the PathMasks property:

c:\Libs\ — all files located in this directory and its subdirectories will be excluded

\Libs\ or *\Libs\* — all files located in the directories with path containing the Libs subdirectory will be excluded.

Libs or *Libs* — the files possessing within their paths the subdirectory with the 'Libs' chars in its name will be excluded. Also the files with names containing the 'libs' characters will be excluded as well, for example 'c:\project\mylibs.cpp.' To avoid confusion we advise you always to specify folders with slash separators.

c:\proj\includes.cpp — a single file located in the c:\proj\ folder with the specified name will be excluded from the analysis.

Settings: Keyword Message Filtering

In the keyword filtering tab you can filter analyzer messages by the text they contain.

When it's necessary you may hide from analyzer's report the diagnosed errors containing particular words or phrases. For example, if the report contains errors in which names of printf and scanf functions are indicated and you consider that there can be no errors relating to them just add these two words using the message suppression editor.

Please note! When changing the list of the hidden messages you don't need to restart analysis of the project. The analyzer always generates all the diagnostic messages and the display of various messages is managed with the help of this settings tab. When modifying message filters the changes will immediately appear in the report and you won't need to launch analysis of the whole project again.

Settings: Registration

Open PVS-Studio settings page. (PVS-Studio Menu -> Options...).

In the registration tab the licensing information is entered.

After purchasing the analyzer you receive registration information: the name and the serial number. These data must be entered in this tab. In the LicenseType field the licensing mode will be indicated.

Information on the licensing conditions is located in the ordering page on site.

Settings: Specific Analyzer Settings

Analysis Timeout
Incremental Analysis Timeout
No Noise
Perform Custom Build Step
Perform TFVC Checkout
Save File After False Alarm Mark
Display False Alarms
Integrated Help Language
Show Tray Icon
Incremental Results Display Depth
Trace Mode
Automatic Settings Import
Use Solution Folder As Initial
Save Modified Log
Source Tree Root
Use Solution Dir As Source Tree Root
Save Solution Statistics
Autoload Unreal Engine Log

The "Specific Analyzer Settings" tab contains additional advanced settings.

Analysis Timeout

This setting allows you to set the time limit, by reaching which the analysis of individual files will be aborted with V006. File cannot be processed. Analysis aborted by timeout error, or to completely disable analysis termination by timeout. We strongly advise you to consult the description of the error cited above before modifying this setting. The timeout is often caused by the shortage of RAM. In such a case it is reasonable not to increase the time but to decrease the number of parallel threads being utilized. This can lead to a substantial increase in performance in case the processor possesses numerous cores but RAM capacity is insufficient.

Incremental Analysis Timeout

This setting allows setting a time limit, after which the incremental analysis files will be aborted. All the warnings, detected at the moment of the analysis stoppage, will be output in the PVS-Studio window. Additionally, there will be issued a warning that the analyzer didn't have time to process all the modified files and the information about the total and analyzed number of files.

This option is relevant only for working in Visual Studio IDE.

No Noise

When working on a large code base, the analyzer inevitably generates a large number of warning messages. Besides, it is often impossible to fix all the warnings straight out. Therefore, to concentrate on fixing the most important warnings first, the analysis can be made less "noisy" by using this option. It allows completely disabling the generation of Low Certainty (level 3) warnings. After restarting the analysis, the messages from this level will disappear from the analyzer's output.

When circumstances will allow it, and all of the more important messages are fixed, the 'No Noise' mode can be switched off – all of the messages that disappeared before will be available again.

Perform Custom Build Step

Setting this option to 'true' enables the execution of actions specified in the 'Custom Build Step' section of Visual Studio project file (vcproj/vcxproj). It should be noted that the analyzer requires a fully-compilable code for its correct operation. So, if, for example, the 'Custom Build Section' contains actions used to auto-generate some header files, these actions should be executed (by enabling this setting) before starting the project's analysis. However, in case this step performs some actions concerning the linking process, for instance, then such actions will be irrelevant to code analysis. The 'Custom Build Step' actions are specified at the level of the project and will be executed by PVS-Studio during initial scanning of the project file tree. If this setting is enabled and its execution results in a non-zero exit code, the analysis of the corresponding project file will not be started.

Perform TFVC Checkout

Enabling of this option allows to automatically perform a checkout using the Team Foundation Version Control Tool when editing files, containing the suppressed analyzer warnings (.suppress files). Enabling of this option will not affect the work with projects, not managed by the TF versions control system, or not added in the Visual Studio workspace.

Additional information, in case if it is available (including the information about errors), will be shown in the PVS-Studio window.

This option is relevant only when working from the Visual Studio IDE.

Save File After False Alarm Mark

Marking the message as False alarm requires the modification of source code files. By default the analyzer will save each source code file after making every such mark. However, if such frequent savings of files are undesirable (for example if the files are being stored on different machine in LAN), they can be disabled using this setting.

Exercise caution while modifying this setting because the not saving the files after marking them with false alarms can lead to a loss of work in case of IDE being closed.

Display False Alarms

Allows enabling the display of messages marked as 'False Alarms' in the PVS-Studio output window. This option will take effect immediately, without the need to re-run the analysis. When this option is set to 'true', an 'FA' indicator containing the number of false alarms on the output window panel will become visible.

Integrated Help Language

The setting allows you to select a language to be used for integrated help on the diagnostic messages (a click to the message error code in PVS-Studio output window) and online documentation (the PVS-Studio -> Help -> Open PVS-Studio Documentation (html, online) menu command), which are also available at our site.

This setting will not change the language of IDE plug-in's interface and messages produced by the analyzer.

Show Tray Icon

This setting allows you to control the notifications of PVS-Studio analyzer operations. In case PVS-Studio output window contains error messages after performing the analysis (the messages potentially can be concealed by various filters as false alarms, by the names of files being verified and so on; such messages will not be present in PVS-Studio window), the analyzer will inform you about their presence with popup message in the Windows notification area (System tray). Single mouse click on this message or PVS-Studio tray icon will open the output window containing the messages which were found by the analyzer.

Incremental Results Display Depth

This setting defines the mode of message display level in PVS-Studio Output window for the results of incremental analysis. Setting the display level depth here (correspondingly, Level 1 only; Levels 1 and 2; Levels 1, 2 and 3) will enable automatic activation of these display levels on each incremental analysis procedure. The "Preserve_Current_Levels" on the other hand will preserve the existing display setting.

This setting could be handful for periodic combined use of incremental and regular analysis modes, as the accidental disabling of, for example, level 1 diagnostics during the review of a large analysis log will also result in the concealment of portion of incremental analysis log afterwards. As the incremental analysis operates in the background, such situation could potentially lead to the loss of positives on existing issues within the project source code.

Trace Mode

The setting allows you to select the tracing mode (logging of a program's execution path) for PVS-Studio IDE extension packages (the plug-ins for Visual Studio IDEs). There are several verbosity levels of the tracing (The Verbose mode is the most detailed one). When tracing is enabled PVS-Studio will automatically create a log file with the 'log' extension which will be located in the AppData\PVS-Studio directory (for example c:\Users\admin\AppData\Roaming\PVS-Studio\PVSTrace2168_000.log). Similarly, each of the running IDE processes will use a separate file to store its' logging results.

Automatic Settings Import

This option allows you to enable the automatic import of settings (xml files) from %AppData%\PVS-Studio\SettingsImports\' directory. The settings will be imported on each update from stored settings, i.e. when Visual Studio or PVS-Studio command line is started, when the settings are rest, etc. When importing settings, flag-style options (true\false) and all options containing a single value (a string, for example), will be overwritten by the settings from SettingsImports. The options containing several valued (for example, the excluded directories), will be merged.

If the SettingsImports folder contains several xml files, these files will be applied to the current settings in a sequential manner, according to their names.

Use Solution Folder As Initial

By default PVS-Studio offers saving report file (.plog) inside the same folder as the current solution file.

Modifying this setting allows you to restore the usual behavior of Windows file dialogs, i.e. the dialog will remember the last folder that was opened in it and will use this folder as initial.

Save Modified Log

This setting specifies whether the 'Save log' confirmation prompt should be displayed before starting the analysis or loading another log file, in case output window already contains new, unsaved or modified analysis results. Setting the option to 'Yes' will enable automatic saving of analysis results to the current log file (after it was selected once in the 'Save File' dialog). Setting the option to 'No' will force IDE plug-in to discard any of the analysis results. The choice of the value 'Ask_Always' (used by default) will display the prompt to save the report each time, allowing the user to make the choice himself.

Source Tree Root

By default, PVS-Studio will produce diagnostic messages containing absolute paths to the files being verified. This setting could be utilized for specifying the 'root' section of the path, which will be replaced by a special marker in case the path to the file within the analyzer's diagnostic message also starts from this 'root'. For example, the absolute path to the C:\Projects\Project1\main.cpp file will be replaced to a relative path |?|Project1\main.cpp, if the 'C:\Projects\' was specified as a 'root'.

When handling PVS-Studio log containing messages with paths in such relative format, IDE plug-in will automatically replace the |?| with this setting's value. Thereby, utilizing this setting allows you to handle PVS-Studio report on any local machine with the access to the verified sources, regardless of the sources' location in the file system structure.

A detailed description of the mode is available here.

Use Solution Dir As Source Tree Root

This setting enables or disables the mode of using the path to the folder, containing the solution file *.sln as a parameter 'SourceTreeRoot'.

Save Solution Statistics

Controls whether the analysis run statistics will be saved to '%AppData%\PVS-Studio\Statistics' folder. The statistics can be reviewed in the 'PVS-Studio|Analysis Statistics...' dialog.

Autoload Unreal Engine Log

Enabling this option allows to automatically load analyzer report that was generated as a result of the Unreal Engine project analysis, into the PVS-Studio output window.

This option is relevant only for working in Visual Studio IDE.

PVS-Studio C# installation on Linux and macOS

PVS-Studio C# dependencies
- .NET Core SDK
- pvs-studio
Installing the analyzer on Linux operating systems
- Installation from repositories
- Manual installation
Analyzer installation on macOS
- Installation from Homebrew
- Manual installation
License Entering
Projects analysis

Note. To install the analyzer on Windows operating systems, you can use the installer available on the analyzer download page. Windows installer supports installation in both graphical and unattended (command-line installation) modes.

PVS-Studio C# dependencies

The PVS-Studio C# analyzer requires a number of additional packages. Depending on how PVS-Studio C# is installed these dependency packages will be installed automatically by the package manager, or they will need to be installed manually.

.NET Core SDK

The analyzer requires .NET Core SDK 3.1 installed on a machine. Instructions for adding the .NET Core repository to various Linux distributions can be found here.

The .NET Core SDK for macOS can be downloaded from this page.

Note. When installing pvs-studio-dotnet via the package manager on Linux, the version of the .NET Core SDK required for the analyzer will be installed automatically, but the .NET Core repository must first be added manually.

pvs-studio

The PVS-Studio C# analyzer requires the presence of the PVS-Studio C++ analyzer (pvs-studio) to work.

Note. When installing the PVS-Studio C# analyzer package (pvs-studio-dotnet) via the package manager, the C++ analyzer package (pvs-studio) will be installed automatically and you can skip this step.

When installing the C# analyzer via unpacking the archive, you must also install the C++ analyzer (pvs-studio). The C++ analyzer must be installed in the following directories:

Linux: any directory whose path is written in the 'PATH' environment variable;
macOS: /usr/local/bin/pvs-studio

Instructions for installing pvs-studio are available in the corresponding sections of the documentation: Linux; macOS.

Installing the analyzer on Linux operating systems

Installation from repositories

Installing from the repository is the recommended method that allows you to automatically install the necessary dependencies and get updates.

For debian-based systems

wget -q -O - https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt | \
  sudo apt-key add -
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/viva64.list \
  https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pvs-studio-dotnet

For yum-based systems

wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/viva64.repo \
  https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.repo
yum update
yum install pvs-studio-dotnet

For zypper-based systems

wget -q -O /tmp/viva64.key https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt
sudo rpm --import /tmp/viva64.key
sudo zypper ar -f https://files.viva64.com/rpm viva64
sudo zypper update
sudo zypper install pvs-studio-dotnet

Manual installation

Direct links to download packages / archives are available on the download page. The installation / unpacking commands are given below.

Deb package

sudo gdebi pvs-studio-dotnet-VERSION.deb

sudo apt-get -f install pvs-studio-dotnet-VERSION.deb

Rpm package

sudo dnf install pvs-studio-dotnet-VERSION.rpm

sudo zypper install pvs-studio-dotnet-VERSION.rpm

sudo yum install pvs-studio-dotnet-VERSION.rpm

sudo rpm -i pvs-studio-dotnet-VERSION.rpm

Analyzer installation on macOS

Installation from Homebrew

Installation commands:

brew install viva64/pvs-studio/pvs-studio
brew install viva64/pvs-studio/pvs-studio-dotnet

Update commands:

brew upgrade pvs-studio
brew upgrade pvs-studio-dotnet

Manual installation

The command to unpack the archive:

tar -xzf pvs-studio-dotnet-VERSION.tar.gz

License Entering

To enter a license, use the following command:

pvs-studio-analyzer credentials NAME XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

Projects analysis

Analyzer usage is described in the corresponding section of the documentation.

Using PVS-Studio with JetBrains Rider

Installing the plugin from the official JetBrains repository
Installing the plugin from the PVS-Studio repository
Installing the PVS-Studio C# analyzer
Entering a license
Plugin settings
Checking code with PVS-Studio from Rider
Managing analysis results

PVS-Studio analyzer can be used with JetBrains Rider IDE as a plugin providing a convenient GUI for analyzing projects and individual files as well as managing diagnostic messages.

PVS-Studio plugin for Rider can be installed from the official JetBrains plugin repository or from the repository on our website. Another way to install it is by using the PVS-Studio installer for Windows, which is available on our download page.

Installing the plugin from the official JetBrains repository

To install PVS-Studio plugin from the official JetBrains repository, open the settings window by clicking 'File -> Settings -> Plugins', choose the Marketplace tab, and enter 'PVS-Studio' in the search bar. The 'PVS-Studio for Rider' plugin will appear in the search results:

Click 'Install' next to the plugin name. Once the installation is finished, click Restart IDE.

After restarting the IDE, you can use PVS-Studio plugin to analyze your code.

Installing the plugin from the PVS-Studio repository

In addition to the official JetBrains repository, PVS-Studio plugin for Rider is also available from PVS-Studio's own repository. To install the plug-in from there, you first need to add this repository to Rider IDE. To do this, click on the 'File -> Settings -> Plugins' command to open the plugin installation window.

In that window, click the gear icon in the top-right corner and select 'Manage Plugin Repositories' in the drop-down list.

In the opened window, add the http://files.viva64.com/java/pvsstudio-rider-plugins/updatePlugins.xml path, and click OK.

The final installation step is the same as in the previous scenario of installing the plugin from the official repository: open the Marketplace tab and enter "PVS-Studio" in the search box. Select the plugin 'PVS-Studio for Rider' in the search results, click 'Install', and restart the IDE.

Installing the PVS-Studio C# analyzer

To be able to use PVS-Studio in the Rider IDE, you will also need to install the kernel of the C# analyzer and its dependencies in addition to the plugin itself.

If you have installed the plugin using the PVS-Studio installer for Windows, then all the required components have been already installed on your system, so you can skip this step.

If you have installed the plugin separately (by adding the repository or from the official JetBrains repository), you fist need to download and install the PVS-Studio C# analyzer core for the relevant platform from here.

Entering a license

To enter your PVS-Studio license, open any project in Rider and then open the plugin settings window: 'Tools -> PVS-Studio -> Settings':

Choose the Registration tab.

Fill in the 'User Name' and 'Serial Number' fields with the corresponding values from your license.

If the license you have entered is correct, the 'Invalid License' label will be replaced with 'Valid License' and the license expiration date will appear in the 'Expires' field. Click 'Save' to confirm and save the license.

Plugin settings

The Settings window of the PVS-Studio plugin comprises several tabs. Let's discuss each in detail.

Settings – settings of the PVS-Studio analyzer core. Hover the mouse pointer over the option name to see a pop-up tooltip for that option.

Warnings – a list of all the diagnostic rules supported by the analyzer. Unchecking a diagnostic rule prevents all warnings associated with it from being displayed in the analyzer's output window.

Excludes – contains masks for filenames and paths to be excluded from analysis.

Registration – contains information about the current license.

Checking code with PVS-Studio from Rider

JetBrains Rider can open projects in two modes: the project itself, or the project's source folder. When opening a project, Rider can open both individual 'csproj' files, and a solution file containing one or more project files.

With a project or solution opened, you can choose to check:

The current project/solution.
Items selected in the 'Explorer' window.
file currently opened in the code editor.

To analyze the current project or solution, choose the 'Tools -> PVS-Studio -> Check Current Solution/Project' menu item.

To analyze an opened file, choose the 'Tools -> PVS-Studio -> Check Open File' command.

You can also select several items in the 'Explorer' window using the CTRL/SHIFT + mouse Left Click and then choose 'Tools -> PVS-Studio -> Check Selected Items' command:

Another way to do this is to open the drop-down menu by right-clicking in the 'Explorer' window and selecting 'Check Selected Items' menu item:

In the examples above, all of the *.cs and *.csproj files from the folders Core and Controllers, as well as the Startup.cs file will be analyzed.

When a project folder is opened in Rider, PVS-Studio doesn't know which project, file, or solution exactly should be analyzed, so the 'Check Current Solution/Project' and 'Check Open File' menu items are inactive. The only available option is to check the solution through the 'Tools -> PVS-Studio -> Check Selected Items' command:

Another way to achieve this is to open the drop-down menu by right-clicking in the 'Explorer' window and selecting 'Check Selected Items' menu item.

Managing analysis results

The analysis results produced by PVS-Studio analyzer will appear in the table inside the 'PVS-Studio' window:

The table is made up of 7 columns (from left to right: Favorite, Code, CWE, Message, Position, Projects, False Alarms). The analyzer messages can be sorted by any column. To change the sorting order, click on the column heading. The leftmost column (Favorite) can be used to bookmark warnings for quick search among marked messages by sorting the messages by the Favorite column.

When clicking on a warning code in the Code / CWE columns, a webpage will open in your browser providing a detailed description of the warning or potential vulnerability. The Message column provides brief descriptions of the warnings. The Position column contains a list of files the warning refers to. The Projects column is a list of projects containing the file the warning refers to. The rightmost column, False Alarms, contains warnings marked as false positives. Managing false positives will be described in detail further, in the corresponding section.

Double clicking on a table row opens a file at the line the warning was triggered at:

There are also two arrow buttons above the table – these can be used to move between the warnings and open the associated files in the source code editor. To the right of the arrow buttons, a number of filter buttons are available, which allow you to sort the warnings by severity level: High, Medium, Low, and Fails (failures of the analyzer itself).

When clicking the search icon, an additional panel opens with text fields for searching across the Code, CWE, Message, and Position columns. Each field is a string filter allowing you to filter the messages by the text you have entered.

The button with three horizontal lines across it can be found in the top-left corner above the table. Clicking it opens an additional settings panel:

Clicking the gear icon opens the plugin's settings main window, which is also available at 'Tools -> PVS-Studio -> Settings'.

Managing false positives

Sometimes you may get a warning pointing out some spot in your code, but you know that there is no error in that spot. Such a warning is called a false positive.

PVS-Studio Rider plugin allows you to mark the analyzer's messages as false positives to prevent them from appearing in future checks.

To mark false positives, select one or more warnings in the 'PVS-Studio' table, right-click on any row to open the drop-down menu, and select the 'Mark selected messages as False Alarms' command:

The analyzer will add a special comment of the '\\-Vxxx' pattern to the line the warning has been triggered by, where xxx is the PVS-Studio's diagnostic number. You can also add such comments manually.

To have previously marked false warnings displayed in the table, enable the 'Show False Alarms' option at 'Tools -> PVS-Studio -> Settings':

Use the 'Remove False Alarm marks from selected messages' drop-down menu item to unmark selected warnings as false positives.

To learn more about suppressing analyzer-generated warnings and other ways of suppressing warnings by using configuration files (.pvsconfig) added to the project, see the Suppression of false alarms documentation section.

Suppressing analyzer warnings in legacy code

Getting started with static analysis and using it regularly may be difficult due to multiple warnings triggered by legacy code. Such code is typically well tested and stable, so fixing every warning in it isn't necessary – all the more so because if the code base is large, fixing it may take a long time. What's more, warnings issued on legacy code prevent you from focusing on warnings issued on newly written code still in development.

To solve this problem and start using static analysis regularly without delay, PVS-Studio allows you to "turn off" warnings in the legacy code. To do that, select 'Tools -> PVS-Studio -> Suppress All Messages' command or click the 'Suppress All Messages' button on the PVS-Studio window toolbar. After that, all messages will be added to special *.suppress files, which is what the suppression mechanism is based on. The next time you run the analysis, the warnings added to these *.suppress files will be excluded from the analyzer's report. This suppression mechanism is quite flexible and is able to "track" suppressed messages even after you modify or move the involved code fragments.

The *.suppress files are created at the project level, in the same location where the project file is stored, but you can also add them to any project or solution (for example, if you want to use one suppress file for several projects or an entire solution). To get those warnings back in the report, delete the suppress files associated with the affected projects.

To learn more about warning suppression and to see the guide on handling *.suppress files, see the Mass suppression of analyzer warnings documentation section.

Drop-down menu of the warnings table

Right-clicking on a warning in the PVS-Studio window table opens a drop-down menu, which contains additional items for managing selected warnings.

Clicking the 'Mark selected messages as False Alarms / Remove false alarm masks' item marks selected warnings as false positives by adding a special comment to the lines of code they refer to (see the section above on managing false positives).

The 'Exclude from analysis' item is used to add the full or partial pathname of the file containing a warning to the list of folders excluded from analysis. Every file whose pathname matches the filter will be excluded from the analysis.

Saving and loading analysis results

Analysis results can be saved or loaded using the items of the 'Tools -> PVS-Studio' submenu:

The 'Open Report' command opens the .json report file and loads its contents into the table in the 'PVS-Studio' output window.

The 'Recent Reports' submenu contains a list of recently opened reports. Clicking an item on this list opens that file (given that it still exists at that location) and loads its contents into the table in the 'PVS-Studio' window.

Selecting the 'Save Report' item saves all the messages from the table (even the filtered ones) to a .json report file. If the current list of messages has never been saved before, you will be prompted for a name and location to store the report file to.

Similarly, the 'Save Report As' item is used to save all the warnings from the table (even the filtered ones) to a .json file and always prompts you to specify the location to store the report file to.

V001. A code fragment from 'file' cannot be analyzed.

The analyzer sometimes fails to diagnose a file with source code completely.

There may be three reasons for that:

1) An error in code

There is a template class or template function with an error. If this function is not instantiated, the compiler fails to detect some errors in it. In other words, such an error does not hamper compilation. PVS-Studio tries to find potential errors even in classes and functions that are not used anywhere. If the analyzer cannot parse some code, it will generate the V001 warning. Consider a code sample:

template <class T>
class A
{
public:
  void Foo()
  {
    //forget ;
    int x
  }
};

Visual C++ will compile this code if the A class is not used anywhere. But it contains an error, which hampers PVS-Studio's work.

2) An error in the Visual C++'s preprocessor

The analyzer uses the Visual C++'s preprocessor while working. From time to time this preprocessor makes errors when generating preprocessed "*.i" files. As a result, the analyzer receives incorrect data. Here is a sample:

hWnd = CreateWindow (
  wndclass.lpszClassName,    // window class name
  __T("NcFTPBatch"),         // window caption
  WS_OVERLAPPED | WS_CAPTION | WS_SYSMENU | WS_MINIMIZEBOX,
    // window style
  100,            // initial x position
  100,            // initial y position
  450,            // initial x size
  100,            // initial y size
  NULL,           // parent window handle
  NULL,           // window menu handle
  hInstance,      // program instance handle
  NULL);          // creation parameters
if (hWnd == NULL) {
...

Visual C++'s preprocessor turned this code fragment into:

hWnd = // window class name// window caption// window style// 
initial x position// initial y position// initial x size// 
initial y size// parent window handle// window menu handle// 
program instance handleCreateWindowExA(0L, 
wndclass.lpszClassName, "NcFTPBatch", 0x00000000L | 0x00C00000L |
 0x00080000L | 0x00020000L, 100, 100,450, 100, ((void *)0), 
((void *)0), hInstance, ((void *)0)); // creation parameters
if (hWnd == NULL) {
...

It turns out that we have the following code:

hWnd = // a long comment
if (hWnd == NULL) {
...

This code is incorrect and PVS-Studio will inform you about it. Of course it is a defect of PVS-Studio, so we will eliminate it in time.

It is necessary to note that Visual C++ successfully compiles this code because the algorithms it uses for compilation purposes and generation of preprocessed "*.i" files are different.

3) Defects inside PVS-Studio

On rare occasions PVS-Studio fails to parse complex template code.

Whatever the reason for generating the V001 warning, it is not crucial. Usually incomplete parse of a file is not very significant from the viewpoint of analysis. PVS-Studio simply skips a function/class with an error and continues analyzing the file. Only a small code fragment is left unanalyzed.

V002. Some diagnostic messages may contain incorrect line number.

The analyzer can sometimes issue an error "Some diagnostic messages may contain incorrect line number". This occurs when it encounters multiline #pragma directives, on all supported versions of Microsoft Visual Studio.

Any code analyzer works only with preprocessed files, i.e. with those files in which all (#define) macros are expanded and all included files are substituted (#include). Also in the pre-processed file there is information about the substituted files and their positions. That means, in the preprocessed files there is information about line numbers.

Preprocessing is carried out in any case. For the user this procedure looks quite transparent. Sometimes the preprocessor is a part of the code analyzer and sometimes (like in the case with PVS-Studio) external preprocessor is used. In PVS-Studio we use the preprocessor by Microsoft Visual Studio or Clang. The analyzer starts the command line compiler cl.exe/clang.exe for each C/C++ file being processed and generates a preprocessed file with "i" extension.

Here is one the situation where the message "Some diagnostic messages may contain incorrect line number" is issued and a failure in positioning diagnostic messages occurs. It happens because of multiline directives #pragma of a special type. Here is an example of correct code:

#pragma warning(push) 
void test()
{
  int a;
  if (a == 1) // PVS-Studio will inform about the error here
    return;
}

If #pragma directive is written in two lines, PVS-Studio will point to an error in an incorrect fragment (there will be shift by one line):

#pragma \
  warning(push) 
void test()
{
  int a;      // PVS-Studio will show the error here,
  if (a == 1) // actually, however, the error should be here.
    return;
}

However, in another case there will be no error caused by the multiline #pragma directive:

#pragma warning \
  (push) 
void test()
{
  int a;
  if (a == 1) // PVS-Studio will inform about the error in this line
    return;
}

Our recommendation here is either not to use the multiline #pragma directives at all, or to use them in such a way that they can be correctly processed.

The code analyzer tries to detect a failure in lines numbering in the processed file. This mechanism is a heuristic one and it cannot guarantee correct determination of diagnostic messages positioning in the program code. However, if it is possible to find out that a particular file contains multiline pragmas, and there exists a positioning error, then the message "Some diagnostic messages may contain incorrect line number" is issued.

This mechanism works in the following way.

The analyzer opens the source C/C++ file and searches for the very last token. It selects only those tokens that are not shorter than three symbols in order to ignore closing parentheses, etc. E.g., for the following code the "return" operator will be considered as the last token:

01 #include "stdafx.h"
02
03 int foo(int a)
04 {
05   assert(a >= 0 &&
06          a <= 1000);
07   int b = a + 1;
08   return b;
09 }

Having found the last token, the analyzer will determine the number of the line which contains it. In this very case it is line 8. Further on, the analyzer searches for the last token in the file which has already been preprocessed. If the last tokens do not coincide, then most likely the macro in the end of file was not expanded; the analyzer is unable to understand whether the lines are arranged correctly, and ignores the given situation. However, such situations occur very rarely and last tokens almost always coincide in the source and preprocessed files. If it is so, the line number is determined, in which the token in the preprocessed file is situated.

Thus, we have the line numbers in which the last token is located in the source file and in the preprocessed file. If these line numbers do not coincide, then there has been a failure in lines numbering. In this case, the analyzer will notify the user about it with the message "Some diagnostic messages may contain incorrect line number".

Please consider that if a multiline #pragma-directive is situated in the file after all the dangerous code areas are found, then all the line numbers for the found errors will be correct. Even though the analyzer issues the message "Some diagnostic messages may contain incorrect line number for file", this will not prevent you from analyzing the diagnostic messages issued by it.

Please pay attention that this error may lead to incorrect work of the code analyzer, although it is not an error of PVS-Studio itself.

V003. Unrecognized error found...

Message V003 means that a critical error occurred in the analyzer. It is most likely that in this case you will not see any warning messages concerning the file being checked at all.

Although the message V003 is very rare, we will appreciate if you help us fix the issue that caused this message to appear. To do this, please send us a file with stacktrace ('*.PVS-Studio.stacktrace.txt'), a preprocessed i-file that caused the error ('*.PVS-Studio.i') and its corresponding configuration file ('*.PVS-Studio.cfg') to this e-mail support@viva64.com.

Note. A preprocessed i-file is generated from a source file (for example, 'file.cpp') when the preprocessor finishes its work. To get this file you should set the option 'RemoveIntermediateFiles' to 'False' on the tab 'Common Analyzer Settings' in PVS-Studio settings and restart the analysis of this one file.

If the 'pvs-studio-analyzer' utility is used to analyze the project, then the internal files can be obtained using the '--dump-files' flag.

After that you can find the corresponding i-file in the project folder (for example, 'file.PVS-Studio.i') and its corresponding 'file.PVS-Studio.cfg'.

V004. Diagnostics from the 64-bit rule set are not entirely accurate without the appropriate 64-bit compiler. Consider utilizing 64-bit compiler if possible.

When detecting issues of 64-bit code, it is 64-bit configuration of a project that the analyzer must always test. For it is 64-bit configuration where data types are correctly expanded and branches like "#ifdef WIN64" are selected, and so on. It is incorrect to try to detect issues of 64-bit code in a 32-bit configuration.

But sometimes it may be helpful to test the 32-bit configuration of a project. You can do it in case when there is no 64-bit configuration yet but you need to estimate the scope of work on porting the code to a 64-bit platform. In this case you can test a project in 32-bit mode. Testing the 32-bit configuration instead of the 64-bit one will show how many diagnostic warnings the analyzer will generate when testing the 64-bit configuration. Our experiments show that of course far not all the diagnostic warnings are generated when testing the 32-bit configuration. But about 95% of them in the 32-bit mode coincide with those in the 64-bit mode. It allows you to estimate the necessary scope of work.

Pay attention! Even if you correct all the errors detected when testing the 32-bit configuration of a project, you cannot consider the code fully compatible with 64-bit systems. You need to perform the final testing of the project in its 64-bit configuration.

The V004 message is generated only once for each project checked in the 32-bit configuration. The warning refers to the file which will be the first to be analyzed when checking the project. It is done for the purpose to avoid displaying a lot of similar warnings in the report.

V005. Cannot determine active configuration for project. Please check projects and solution configurations.

This issue with PVS-Studio is caused by the mismatch of selected project's platform configurations declared in the solution file (Vault.sln) and platform configurations declared in the project file itself.

For example, the solution file may contain lines of this particular kind for concerned project:

{F56ECFEC-45F9-4485-8A1B-6269E0D27E49}.Release|x64.ActiveCfg = Release|x64

However, the project file itself may lack the declaration of Release|x64 configuration. Therefore trying to check this particular project, PVS-Studio is unable to locate the 'Release|x64' configuration. The following line is expected to be automatically generated by IDE in the solution file for such a case:

{F56ECFEC-45F9-4485-8A1B-6269E0D27E49}.Release|x64.ActiveCfg = Release|Win32

In automatically generated solution file the solution's active platform configuration (Release|x64.ActiveCfg) is set equal to one of project's existing configurations (I.e. in this particular case Release|Win32). Such a situation is expected and can be handled by PVS-Studio correctly.

V006. File cannot be processed. Analysis aborted by timeout.

Message V006 is generated when an analyzer cannot process a file for a particular time period and aborts. Such situation might happen in two cases.

The first reason - an error inside the analyzer that does not allow it to parse some code fragment. It happens rather seldom, yet it is possible. Although message V006 appears rather seldom, we would appreciate if you help us eliminate the issue which causes the message to appear. If you have worked with projects in C/C++, please send your preprocessed i-file where this issue occurs and its corresponding configuration launch files (*.PVS-Studio.cfg and *.PVS-Studio.cmd) to the address support@viva64.com.

Note. A preprocessed i-file is generated from a source file (for example, file.cpp) when the preprocessor finishes its work. To get this file you should set the option RemoveIntermediateFiles to False on the tab "Common Analyzer Settings" in PVS-Studio settings and restart the analysis of this one file. After that you can find the corresponding i-file in the project folder (for example, file.i and its corresponding file.PVS-Studio.cfg and file.PVS-Studio.cmd).

The second possible reason is the following: although the analyzer could process the file correctly, it does not have enough time to do that because it gets too few system resources due to high processor load. By default, the number of threads spawned for analysis is equal to the number of processor cores. For example, if we have four cores in our machine, the tool will start analysis of four files at once. Each instance of an analyzer's process requires about 1.5 Gbytes of memory. If your computer does not have enough memory, the tool will start using the swap file and analysis will run slowly and fail to fit into the required time period. Besides, you may encounter this problem when you have other "heavy" applications running on your computer simultaneously with the analyzer.

To solve this issue, you may directly restrict the number of cores to be used for analysis in the PVS-Studio settings (ThreadCount option on the "Common Analyzer Settings" tab).

V007. Deprecated CLR switch was detected. Incorrect diagnostics are possible.

The V007 message appears when the projects utilizing the C++/Common Language Infrastructure Microsoft specification, containing one of the deprecated /clr compiler switches, are selected for analysis. Although you may continue analyzing such a project, PVS-Studio does not officially support these compiler flags. It is possible that some analyzer errors will be incorrect.

V008. Unable to start the analysis on this file.

PVS-Studio was unable to start the analysis of the designated file. This message indicates that an external C++ preprocessor, started by the analyzer to create a preprocessed source code file, exited with a non-zero error code. Moreover, std error can also contain detailed description of this error, which can be viewed in PVS-Studio Output Window for this file.

There could be several reasons for the V008 error:

1) The source code is not compilable

If the C++ sources code is not compilable for some reason (a missing header file for example), then the preprocessor will exit with non-zero error code and the "fatal compilation error" type message will be outputted into std error. PVS-Studio is unable to initiate the analysis in case C++ file hadn't been successfully preprocessed. To resolve this error you should ensure the compilability of the file being analyzed.

2) The preprocessor's executable file had been damaged\locked

Such a situation is possible when the preprocessor's executable file had been damaged or locked by system antiviral software. In this case the PVS-Studio Output window could also contain the error messages of this kind: "The system cannot execute the specified program". To resolve it you should verify the integrity of the utilized preprocessor's executable and lower the security policies' level of system's antiviral software.

3) One of PVS-Studio auxiliary command files had been locked.

PVS-Studio analyzer is not launching the C++ preprocessor directly, but with the help of its own pre-generated command files. In case of strict system security policies, antiviral software could potentially block the correct initialization of C++ preprocessor. This could be also resolved by easing the system security policies toward the analyzer.

4) There are non-latin characters in the used file paths. These characters may not properly show for the current console code page.

PVS-Studio uses 'preprocessing.cmd' batch file (located in the PVS-Studio installation directory) to start preprocessing. In this batch file, you can set the correct code page (using chcp).

V009. To use free version of PVS-Studio, source code files are required to start with a special comment.

You entered a free license key allowing you to use the analyzer in free mode. To be able to run the tool with this key, you need to add special comments to your source files with the following extensions: .c, .cc, .cpp, .cp, .cxx, .c++, .cs. Header files do not need to be modified.

You can insert the comments manually or by using a special open-source utility available at GitHub: how-to-use-pvs-studio-free.

Types of comments:

Comments for students (academic license):

// This is a personal academic project. Dear PVS-Studio, please check it.

// PVS-Studio Static Code Analyzer for C, C++ and C#: http://www.viva64.com

Comments for open-source non-commercial projects:

// This is an open source non-commercial project. Dear PVS-Studio, please check it.

// PVS-Studio Static Code Analyzer for C, C++ and C#: http://www.viva64.com

Comments for individual developers:

// This is an independent project of an individual developer. Dear PVS-Studio, please check it.

// PVS-Studio Static Code Analyzer for C, C++ and C#: http://www.viva64.com

Some developers might not want additional commented lines not related to the project in their files. It is their right, and they can simply choose not to use the analyzer. Another option is to purchase a commercial license and use the tool without any limitations. We consider your adding these comments as your way to say thank you to us for the granted license and help us promote our product.

If you have any questions, please contact our support.

V010. Analysis of 'Makefile/Utility' type projects is not supported in this tool. Use direct analyzer integration or compiler monitoring instead.

The warning V010 appears upon the attempt to check .vcxproj - projects, having the configuration type 'makefile' or 'utility'. PVS-Studio doesn't support such projects, using the plugin or a command line version of the analyzer. This is due to the fact that in the makefile/utility projects, the information necessary to the analyzer (the compilation parameters, in particular) about the build details is not available.

In case if the analysis of such projects is needed, please use a compiler monitoring system or direct integration of the analyzer. You can also disable this warning on the settings page of PVS-Studio (Detectable errors (C++), Fails list).

V011. Presence of #line directives may cause some diagnostic messages to have incorrect file name and line number.

A #line directive is generated by the preprocessor and specifies the filename and line number that a particular line in the preprocessed file refers to.

This is demonstrated by the following example.

#line 20 "a.h"
void X(); // Function X is declared at line 20 in file a.h
void Y(); // Function Y is declared at line 21 in file a.h
void Z(); // Function Z is declared at line 22 in file a.h
#line 5 "a.cpp"
int foo; // Variable foo is declared at line 5 in file a.cpp
int X() { // Definition of function X starts at line 6 in file a.cpp
  return 0; // Line 7
} // Line 8

#line directives are used by various tools, including the PVS-Studio analyzer, to navigate the file.

Sometimes source files (*.c; *.cpp; *.h, etc.) happen to include #line directives as well. This may happen, for example, when the file is generated automatically by some code-generating software (example).

When preprocessing such a file, those #line directives will be added to the resulting *.i file. Suppose, for example, that we have a file named A.cpp:

int a;
#line 30 "My.y"
int b = 10 / 0;

After the preprocessing, we get the file A.i with the following contents:

#line 1 "A.cpp"
int a;
#line 30 "My.y"
int b = 10 / 0;

This makes correct navigation impossible. On detecting a division by zero, the analyzer will report this error as occurring at line 30 in the My.y file. Technically speaking, the analyzer is correct, as the error is indeed a result of the incorrect code in the My.y file. However, with the navigation broken, you will not be able to view the My.y file since the project may simply have no such file. In addition, you will never know that currently, the division-by-zero error actually occurs at line 3 in the A.cpp file.

To fix this issue, we recommend deleting all #line directives in the source files of your project. These directives typically get there by accident and only hinder the work of various tools, such as code analyzers, rather than help.

V011 diagnostic was developed to detect such unwanted #line directives in the source code. The analyzer reports the first 10 #line's in a file. Reporting more makes no sense since you can easily find and delete the remaining #line directives using the search option of your editor.

This is the fixed code:

int a;
int b = 10 / 0;

After the preprocessing, you get the following *.i file:

#line 1 "A.cpp"
int a;
int b = 10 / 0;

The navigation is fixed, and the analyzer will correctly report that the division by zero occurs at line 2 in the A.cpp file.

V012. Some warnings could have been disabled.

Some of the false positive suppression methods allow complete disabling of diagnostics. As a result, such warnings will not be merely marked as false positives in the analysis report but may never appear there in the first place.

To find out which mechanisms exactly were used to disable diagnostics, you can turn on special messages to be included in the log.

When using the analyzer in Visual Studio, open the plugin settings and enable the ReportDisabledRules option in 'Specific Analyzer Settings'

When using the analyzer on Linux or MacOS, add the 'report-disabled-rules=yes' option to the .cfg file.

pvs-studio-analyzer analyze ... --cfg source.cpp.PVS-Studio.cfg

With this option enabled, the analyzer will include V012 messages in its output to provide information about the exact spots where diagnostics were turned off. PVS-Studio's IDE plugins support navigation by those spots in the source files and rule configuration files (.pvsconfig). The paths to configuration files storing ignore rules will also be added to the log as V012 messages.

V051. Some of the references in project are missing or incorrect. The analysis results could be incomplete. Consider making the project fully compilable and building it before analysis.

A V051 message indicates that the C# project, loaded in the analyzer, contains compilation errors. These usually include unknown data types, namespaces, and assemblies (dll files), and generally occur when you try to analyze a project that has dependent assemblies of nuget packages absent on the local machine, or third-party libraries absent among the projects of the current solution.

Despite this error, the analyzer will try to scan the part of the code that doesn't contain unknown types, but results of such analysis may be incomplete, as some of the messages may be lost. The reason is that most diagnostics can work properly only when the analyzer has complete information about all the data types contained in the source files to be analyzed, including the types implemented in third-party assemblies.

Even if rebuilding of dependency files is provided for in the build scenario of the project, the analyzer won't automatically rebuild the entire project. That's why we recommend that, before scanning it, you ensure that the project is fully compilable, including making sure that all the dependency assemblies (dll files) are present.

Sometimes the analyzer may mistakenly generate this message on a fully compilable project, with all the dependencies present. It may happen, for example, when the project uses a non-standard MSBuild scenario - say, csproj files are importing some additional props and target files. In this case, you can ignore the V051 message or turn it off in the analyzer settings.

If you wish to learn which compiler errors are causing the V051 error, start the analysis of your projects with the analyzer's cmd version, and add the '--logCompilerErrors' flag to its arguments (in a single line):

PVS-Studio_Cmd.exe –t MyProject.sln –p "Any CPU" –c "Debug" 
--logCompilerErrors

V052. A critical error had occurred.

The appearance of V052 message means that a critical error had occurred inside the analyzer. It is most likely that several source files will not be analyzed.

You can get additional information about this error from two sources: the analyzer report file (plog) and standard output stream of error messages stderr (when you use the command line version).

If you are using the IDE Visual Studio or Standalone application the error stack is displayed in PVS-Studio window. The stack will be recorded in the very beginning of the plog file. At the same time the stack is divided into substrings, and each of them is recorded and displayed as a separate error without number.

If you are working from the command line, you can analyze the return code of the command line version to understand that the exception occurred, and then examine the plog, without opening it in the IDE Visual Studio or Standalone application. For this purpose, the report can be converted, for example, to a text file using the PlogConverter utility. Return codes of the command line version are described in the section "Analyzing Visual C++ (.vcxproj) and Visual C # project (.csproj) projects from the command line", used utilities - PlogConverter - "Managing the Analysis Results (plog file)".

Although the V052 message is quite rare, we will appreciate if you can help us fixing the issue that had cause it. To accomplish this, please send the exception stack from PVS-Studio output window (or the message from stderr in case the command line version was utilized) to support@viva64.com.

V061. An error has occurred.

A V061 message indicates that an error related to the analyzer's functioning has occurred.

It could be an unexpected exception in the analyzer, failure to build a semantic model of the program, and so on.

In this case, please email us (support@viva64.com) and attach the text files from the .PVS-Studio directory (you can find them in the project directory) so that we could fix the bug as soon as possible.

In addition, you can use the 'verbose' parameter to tell the analyzer to save additional information to the .PVS-Studio directory while running. That information could also be helpful.

Maven plugin:

<verbose>true</verbose>

Gradle plugin:

verbose = true

IntelliJ IDEA plugin:

1) Analyze -> PVS-Studio -> Settings

2) Tab Misc -> uncheck 'Remove intermediate files'

V062. Failed to run analyzer core. Make sure the correct 64-bit Java 8 or higher executable is used, or specify it manually.

A V062 message means that the plugin has failed to run the analyzer core. This message typically appears when attempting to launch the core with an incorrect Java version. The core can work correctly only with the 64-bit Java version 8 or higher. The analyzer retrieves the path to the Java interpreter from the PATH environment variable by default.

You can also specify the path to the required Java interpreter manually.

Maven plugin:

<javaPath>C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.8.0_162/bin/java.exe</javaPath>

Gradle plugin:

javaPath = "C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.8.0_162/bin/java.exe"

IntelliJ IDEA plugin:

1) Analyze -> PVS-Studio -> Settings

2) Tab Environment -> Java executable

If you still cannot launch the analyzer, please email us (support@viva64.com) and attach the text files from the .PVS-Studio directory (you can find it in the project directory). We will try to find a solution as soon as possible.

V063. Analysis aborted by timeout.

A V063 message means that the analyzer has failed to check a file in the given time frame (10 minutes by default). Such messages are often accompanied by "GC overhead limit exceeded" messages.

In some cases, this problem can be solved by simply increasing the amount of memory and stack available to the analyzer.

Maven plugin:

<jvmArguments>-Xmx4096m, -Xss256m</jvmArguments>

Gradle plugin:

jvmArguments = ["-Xmx4096m", "-Xss256m"]

IntelliJ IDEA plugin:

1) Analyze -> PVS-Studio -> Settings

2) Tab Environment -> JVM arguments

The amount of memory available by default could be insufficient when analyzing generated code with numerous nested constructs.

You may want to exclude such code from analysis (using the 'exclude' option) so that the analyzer does not waste time checking it.

A V063 message can also appear when the analyzer does not get enough system resources because of high CPU load. It could process the file correctly if given enough time, but the default time frame is too small.

If you are still getting this message, it may be a sign of a bug in the analyzer. In this case, please email us (support@viva64.com) and attach the text files from the .PVS-Studio directory (you can find it in the project directory) together with the code that seems to trigger this error so that we could fix the bug as soon as possible.

V101. Implicit assignment type conversion to memsize type.

The analyzer detected a potential error relating to implicit type conversion while executing the assignment operator "=". The error may consist in incorrect calculating of the value of the expression to the right of the assignment operator "=".

An example of the code causing the warning message:

size_t a;
unsigned b;
...
a = b; // V101

The operation of converting a 32-bit type to memsize-type is safe in itself as there is no data loss. For example, you can always save the value of unsigned-type variable into a variable of size_t type. But the presence of this type conversion may indicate a hidden error made before.

The first cause of the error occurrence on a 64-bit system may be the change of the expression calculation process. Let's consider an example:

unsigned a = 10;
int b = -11;
ptrdiff_t c = a + b; //V101
cout << c << endl;

On a 32-bit system this code will display the value -1, while on a 64-bit system it will be 4294967295. This behaviour fully meets the rules of type converion in C++ but most likely it will cause an error in a real code.

Let's explain the example. According to C++ rules a+b expression has unsigned type and contains the value 0xFFFFFFFFu. On a 32-bit system ptrdiff_t type is a sign 32-bit type. After 0xFFFFFFFFu value is assigned to the 32-bit sign variable it will contain the value -1. On a 64-bit system ptrdiff_t type is a sign 64-bit type. It means 0xFFFFFFFFu value will be represented as it is. That is, the value of the variable after assignment will be 4294967295.

The error may be corrected by excluding mixed use of memsize and non-memsize-types in one expression. An example of code correction:

size_t a = 10;
ptrdiff_t b = -11;
ptrdiff_t c = a + b;
cout << c << endl;

A more proper way of correction is to refuse using sign and non-sign data types together.

The second cause of the error may be an overflow occurring in 32-bit data types. In this case the error may stand before the assignment operator but you can detect it only indirectly. Such errors occur in code allocating large memory sizes. Let's consider an example:

unsigned Width  = 1800;
unsigned Height = 1800;
unsigned Depth  = 1800;
// Real error is here
unsigned CellCount = Width * Height * Depth;
// Here we get a diagnostic message V101
size_t ArraySize = CellCount * sizeof(char);
cout << ArraySize << endl;
void *Array = malloc(ArraySize);

Suppose that we decided to process data arrays of more than 4 Gb on a 64-bit system. In this case the given code will cause allocation of a wrong memory size. The programmer is planning to allocate 5832000000 memory bytes but he gets only 1537032704 instead. It happens because of an overflow occurring while calculating Width * Height * Depth expression. Unfortunately, we cannot diagnose the error in the line containing this expression but we can indirectly indicate the presence of the error detecting type conversion in the line:

size_t ArraySize = CellCount * sizeof(char); //V101

To correct the error you should use types allowing you to store the necessary range of values. Mind that correction of the following kind is not appropriate:

size_t CellCount = Width * Height * Depth;

We still have the overflow here. Let's consider two examples of proper code correction:

// 1) 
unsigned Width  = 1800;
unsigned Height = 1800;
unsigned Depth  = 1800;
size_t CellCount =
  static_cast<size_t>(Width) *
  static_cast<size_t>(Height) *
  static_cast<size_t>(Depth);
// 2) 
size_t Width  = 1800;
size_t Height = 1800;
size_t Depth  = 1800;
size_t CellCount = Width * Height * Depth;

You should keep in mind that the error can be situated not only higher but even in another module. Let's give a corresponding example. Here the error consists in incorrect index calculation when the array's size exceeds 4 Gb.

Suppose that the application uses a large one-dimensional array and CalcIndex function allows you to address this array as a two-dimensional one.

extern unsigned ArrayWidth;
unsigned CalcIndex(unsigned x, unsigned y) {
  return x + y * ArrayWidth;
}
   ...
const size_t index = CalcIndex(x, y); //V101

The analyzer will warn about the problem in the line: const size_t index = CalcIndex(x, y). But the error is in incorrect implementation of CalcIndex function. If we take CalcIndex separately it is absolutely correct. The output and input values have unsigned type. Calculations are also performed only with unsigned types participating. There are no explicit or implicit type conversions and the analyzer has no opportunity to detect a logic problem relating to CalcIndex function. The error consists in that the result returned by the function and possibly the result of the input values was chosen incorrectly. The function's result must have memsize type.

Fortunately, the analyzer managed to detect implicit conversion of CalcIndex function's result to size_t type. It allows you to analyze the situation and bring necessary changes into the program. Correction of the error may be, for example, the following:

extern size_t ArrayWidth;
size_t CalcIndex(size_t x, size_t y) {
  return x + y * ArrayWidth;
}
...
const size_t index = CalcIndex(x, y);

If you are sure that the code is correct and the array's size will never reach 4 Gb you can suppress the analyzer's warning message by explicit type conversion:

extern unsigned ArrayWidth;
unsigned CalcIndex(unsigned x, unsigned y) {
  return x + y * ArrayWidth;
}
...
const size_t index = static_cast<size_t>(CalcIndex(x, y));

In some cases the analyzer can understand itself that an overflow is impossible and the message won't be displayed.

Let's consider the last example related to incorrect shift operations

ptrdiff_t SetBitN(ptrdiff_t value, unsigned bitNum) {
  ptrdiff_t mask = 1 << bitNum; //V101
  return value | mask;
}

The expression " mask = 1 << bitNum " is unsafe because this code cannot set the high-order bits of the 64-bit variable mask into ones. If you try to use SetBitN function for setting, for example, the 33rd bit, an overflow will occur when performing the shift operation and you will not get the result you've expected.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 11. Pattern 3. Shift operations.
64-bit Lessons. Lesson 17. Pattern 9. Mixed arithmetic.

V102. Usage of non memsize type for pointer arithmetic.

The analyzer found a possible error in pointer arithmetic. The error may be caused by an overflow during the determination of the expression.

Let's take up the first example.

short a16, b16, c16;
char *pointer;
...
pointer += a16 * b16 * c16;

The given example works correctly with pointers if the value of the expression "a16 * b16 * c16" does not excess 'INT_MAX' (2Gb). This code could always work correctly on the 32-bit platform because the program never allocated large-sized arrays. On the 64-bit platform the programmer using the previous code while working with an array of a large size would be disappointed. Suppose, we would like to shift the pointer value in 3000000000 bytes, and the variables 'a16', 'b16' and 'c16' have values 3000, 1000 and 1000 correspondingly. During the determination of the expression "a16 * b16 * c16" all the variables, according to the C++ rules, will be converted to type int, and only then the multiplication will take place. While multiplying an overflow will occur, and the result of this would be the number -1294967296. The incorrect expression result will be extended to type 'ptrdiff_t' and pointer determination will be launched. As a result, we'll face an abnormal program termination while trying to use the incorrect pointer.

To prevent such errors one should use memsize types. In our case it will be correct to change the types of the variables 'a16', 'b16', 'c16' or to use the explicit type conversion to type 'ptrdiff_t' as follows:

short a16, b16, c16;
char *pointer;
...
pointer += static_cast<ptrdiff_t>(a16) *
       static_cast<ptrdiff_t>(b16) *
       static_cast<ptrdiff_t>(c16)

It's worth mentioning that it is not always incorrect not to use memsize type in pointer arithmetic. Let's examine the following situation:

char ch;
short a16;
int *pointer;
...
int *decodePtr = pointer + ch * a16;

The analyzer does not show a message on it because it is correct. There are no determinations which may cause an overflow and the result of this expression will be always correct on the 32-bit platform as well as on the 64-bit platform.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 13. Pattern 5. Address arithmetic.

V103. Implicit type conversion from memsize type to 32-bit type.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the implicit memsize-type conversion to 32-bit type. The error consists in the loss of high bits in 64-bit type which causes the loss of the value.

The compiler also diagnoses such type conversions and shows warnings. Unfortunately, such warnings are often switched off, especially when the project contains a great deal of the previous legacy code or old libraries are used. In order not to make a programmer look through hundreds and thousands of such warnings, showed by the compiler, the analyzer informs only about those which may be the cause of the incorrect work of the code on the 64-bit platform.

The first example.

Our application works with videos and we want to calculate what file-size we'll need in order to store all the shots kept in memory into a file.

size_t Width, Height, FrameCount;
...
unsigned BufferSizeForWrite = Width * Height * FrameCount * 
  sizeof(RGBStruct);

Earlier the general size of the shots in memory could never excess 4 Gb (practically 2-3 Gb depending on the kind of OS Windows). On the 64-bit platform we have an opportunity to store much more shots in memory, and let's suppose that their general size is 10 Gb. After putting the result of the expression "Width * Height * FrameCount * sizeof(RGBStruct)" into the variable 'BufferSizeForWrite', we'll truncate high bits and will deal with the incorrect value.

The correct solution will be to change the type of the variable 'BufferSizeForWrite' into type 'size_t'.

size_t Width, Height, FrameCount;
...
size_t BufferSizeForWrite = Width * Height * FrameCount *
  sizeof(RGBStruct);

The second example.

Saving of the result of pointers subtraction.

char *ptr_1, *ptr_2;
...
int diff = ptr_2 -  ptr_1;

If pointers differ more than in one 'INT_MAX' byte (2 Gb) a value cutoff during the assignment will occur. As a result the variable 'diff' will have an incorrect value. For the storing of the given value we should use type 'ptrdiff_t' or another memsize type.

char *ptr_1, *ptr_2;
...
ptrdiff_t diff = ptr_2 -  ptr_1;

When you are sure about the correctness of the code and the implicit type conversion does not cause errors while changing over to the 64-bit platform, you may use the explicit type conversion in order to avoid error messages showed in this line. For example:

unsigned BitCount = static_cast<unsigned>(sizeof(RGBStruct) * 8);

If you suspect that the code contains incorrect explicit conversions of memsize types to 32-bit types about which the analyzer does not warn, you can use the V202.

As was said before analyzer informs only about those type conversions which can cause incorrect code work on a 64-bit platform. The code given below won't be considered incorrect though there occurs conversion of memsize type to int type:

int size = sizeof(float);

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 17. Pattern 9. Mixed arithmetic.

V104. Implicit type conversion to memsize type in an arithmetic expression.

The analyzer found a possible error inside an arithmetic expression and this error is related to the implicit type conversion to memsize type. The error of an overflow may be caused by the changing of the permissible interval of the values of the variables included into the expression.

The first example.

The incorrect comparison expression. Let's examine the code:

size_t n;
unsigned i;
// Infinite loop (n > UINT_MAX).
for (i = 0; i != n; ++i) { ... }

In this example the error are shown which are related to the implicit conversion of type 'unsigned' to type 'size_t' while performing the comparison operation.

On the 64-bit platform you may have an opportunity to process a larger data size and the value of the variable 'n' may excess the number 'UINT_MAX' (4 Gb). As a result, the condition "i != n" will be always true and that will cause an eternal cycle.

An example of the corrected code:

size_t n;
size_t i;
for (i = 0; i != n; ++i) { ... }

The second example.

char *begin, *end;
int bufLen, bufCount;
...
ptrdiff_t diff = begin - end + bufLen * bufCount;

The implicit conversion of type 'int' to type 'ptrdiff_t' often indicates an error. One should pay attention that the conversion takes place not while performing operator "=" (for the expression "begin - end + bufLen * bufCount" has type 'ptrdiff_t'), but inside this expression. The subexpression "begin - end" according to C++ rules has type 'ptrdiff_t', and the right "bufLen * bufCount" type 'int'. While changing over to 64-bit platform the program may begin to process a larger data size which may result in an overflow while determining the subexpression "bufLen * bufCount".

You should change the type of the variables 'bufLen' and 'bufCount' into memsize type or use the explicit type conversion, as follows:

char *begin, *end;
int bufLen, bufCount;
...
ptrdiff_t diff = begin - end + 
  ptrdiff_t(bufLen) * ptrdiff_t(bufCount);

Let's notice that the implicit conversion to memsize type inside the expressions is not always incorrect. Let's examine the following situation:

size_t value;
char c1, c2;
size_t result = value + c1 * c2;

The analyzer does not show error message although the conversion of type 'int' to 'size_t' occurs in this case, for there can be no overflow while determining the subexpression "c1 * c2".

If you suspect that the program may contain errors related to the incorrect explicit type conversion in expressions, you may use the V201. Here is an example when the explicit type conversion to type 'size_t' hides an error:

int i;
size_t st;
...
st = size_t(i * i * i) * st;

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 17. Pattern 9. Mixed arithmetic.

V105. N operand of '?:' operation: implicit type conversion to memsize type.

The analyzer found a possible error inside an arithmetic expression related to the implicit type conversion to memsize type. An overflow error may be caused by the changing of the permissible interval of the values of the variables included into the expression. This warning is almost equivalent to warning V104 with the exception that the implicit type conversion occurs due to the use of '?:' operation.

Let's give an example of the implicit type conversion while using operation:

int i32;
float f = b != 1 ? sizeof(int) : i32;

In the arithmetic expression the ternary operation '?:' is used which has three operands:

b != 1 - the first operand;
sizeof(int) - the second operand;
i32 - the third operand.

The result of the expression "b != 1 ? sizeof(int) : i32" is the value of type 'size_t' which is then converted into type 'float' value. Thus, the implicit type conversion realized for the 3rd operand of '?:' operation.

Let's examine an example of the incorrect code:

bool useDefaultVolume;
size_t defaultVolume;
unsigned width, height, depth;
...
size_t volume = useDefaultVolume ?
                        defaultVolume :
                        width * height * depth;

Let's suppose, we're developing an application of computational modeling which requires three-dimensional calculation area. The number of calculating elements which are used is determined according to the variable 'useDefaultSize' value and is assigned on default or by multiplication of length, height and depth of the calculating area. On the 32-bit platform the size of memory which was already allocated, cannot excess 2-3 Gb (depending on the kind of OS Windows) and as consequence the result of the expression "width * height * depth" will be always correct. On the 64-bit platform, using the opportunity to deal with a larger memory size, the number of calculating elements may excess the value 'UINT_MAX' (4 Gb). In this case an overflow will occur while determining the expression "width * height * depth" because the result of this expression had type 'unsigned'.

Correction of the code may consist in the changing of the type of the variables 'width', 'height' and 'depth' to memsize type as follows:

...
size_t width, height, depth;
...
size_t volume = useDefaultVolume ?
                        defaultVolume :
                        width * height * depth;

Or in use of the explicit type conversion:

unsigned width, height, depth;
...
size_t volume = useDefaultVolume ?
                        defaultVolume :
             size_t(width) * size_t(height) * size_t(depth);

In addition, we advise to read the description of a similar warning V104, where one can learn about other effects of the implicit type conversion to memsize type.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 17. Pattern 9. Mixed arithmetic.

V106. Implicit type conversion N argument of function 'foo' to memsize type.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the implicit actual function argument conversion to memsize type.

The first example.

The program deals with large arrays using container 'CArray' from library MFC. On the 64-bit platform the number of array items may excess the value 'INT_MAX' (2Gb), which will make the work of the following code impossible:

CArray<int, int> myArray;
...
int invalidIndex = 0;
INT_PTR validIndex = 0;
while (validIndex != myArray.GetSize()) {
  myArray.SetAt(invalidIndex, 123);
  ++invalidIndex;
  ++validIndex;
}

The given code fills all the array 'myArray' items with value 123. It seems to be absolutely correct and the compiler won't show any warnings in spite of its impossibility to work on the 64-bit platform. The error consists in the use of type int as an index of the variable 'invalidIndex'. When the value of the variable 'invalidIndex' excesses 'INT_MAX' an overflow will occur and it will receive value "-1". The analyzer diagnoses this error and warns that the implicit conversion of the first argument of the function 'SetAt' to memsize type (here it is type 'INT_PTR') occurs. When seeing such a warning you may correct the error replacing 'int' type with a more appropriate one.

The given example is significant because it is rather unfair to blame a programmer for the ineffective code. The reason is that 'GetAt' function in class 'CArray' in the previous MFC library version was declared as follows:

void SetAt(int nIndex, ARG_TYPE newElement);

And in the new version:

void SetAt(INT_PTR nIndex, ARG_TYPE newElement);

Even the Microsoft developers creating MFC could not take into account all the possible consequences of the use of 'int' type for indexing in the array and we can forgive the common developer who has written this code.

Here is the correct variant:

...
INT_PTR invalidIndex = 0;
INT_PTR validIndex = 0;
while (validIndex != myArray.GetSize()) {
  myArray.SetAt(invalidIndex, 123);
  ++invalidIndex;
  ++validIndex;
}

The second example.

The program determines the necessary data array size and then allocated it using function 'malloc' as follows:

unsigned GetArraySize();
...
unsigned size = GetArraySize();
void *p = malloc(size);

The analyzer will warn about the line "void *p = malloc(size);". Looking through the definition of function 'malloc' we will see that its formal argument assigning the size of the allocated memory is represented by type 'size_t'. But in the program the variable 'size' of 'unsigned' type is used as the actual argument. If your program on the 64-bit platform needs an array more than 'UINT_MAX' bytes (4Gb), we can be sure that the given code is incorrect for type 'unsigned' cannot keep a value more than 'UINT_MAX'. The program correction consists in changing the types of the variables and functions used in the determination of the data array size. In the given example we should replace 'unsigned' type with one of memsize types, and also if it is necessary modify the function 'GetArraySize' code.

...
size_t GetArraySize();
...
size_t size = GetArraySize();
void *p = malloc(size);

The analyzer show warnings on the implicit type conversion only if it may cause an error during program port on the 64-bit platform. Here it is the code which contains the implicit type conversion but does not cause errors:

void MyFoo(SSIZE_T index);
...
char c = 'z';
MyFoo(0);
MyFoo(c);

If you are sure that the implicit type conversion of the actual function argument is absolutely correct you may use the explicit type conversion to suppress the analyzer's warnings as follows:

typedef size_t TYear;
void MyFoo(TYear year);
int year;
...
MyFoo(static_cast<TYear>(year));

Sometimes the explicit type conversion may hide an error. In this case you may use the V201.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 17. Pattern 9. Mixed arithmetic.

V107. Implicit type conversion N argument of function 'foo' to 32-bit type.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the implicit conversion of the actual function argument which has memsize type to 32-bit type.

Let's examine an example of the code which contains the function for searching for the max array item:

float FindMaxItem(float *array, int arraySize) {
  float max = -FLT_MAX;
  for (int i = 0; i != arraySize; ++i) {
    float item = *array++;
    if (max < item)
      max = item;
  }
  return max;
}
...
float *beginArray;
float *endArray;
float maxValue = FindMaxItem(beginArray, endArray - beginArray);

This code may work successfully on the 32-bit platform but it won't be able to process arrays containing more than 'INT_MAX' (2Gb) items on the 64-bit architecture. This limitation is caused by the use of int type for the argument 'arraySize'. Pay attention that the function code looks absolutely correct not only from the compiler's point of view but also from that of the analyzer. There is no type conversion in this function and one cannot find the possible problem.

The analyzer will warn about the implicit conversion of memsize type to a 32-bit type during the invocation of 'FindMaxItem' function. Let's try to find out why it happens so. According to C++ rules the result of the subtraction of two pointers has type 'ptrdiff_t'. When invocating 'FindMaxItem' function the implicit conversion of 'ptrdiff_t' type to 'int' type occurs which will cause the loss of the high bits. This may be the reason for the incorrect program behavior while processing a large data size.

The correct solution will be to replace 'int' type with 'ptrdiff_t' type for it will allow to keep the whole range of values. The corrected code:

float FindMaxItem(float *array, ptrdiff_t arraySize) {
  float max = -FLT_MAX;
  for (ptrdiff_t i = 0; i != arraySize; ++i) {
    float item = *array++;
    if (max < item)
      max = item;
  }
  return max;
}

Analyzer tries as far as possible to recognize safe type conversions and keep from displaying warning messages on them. For example, the analyzer won't give a warning message on 'FindMaxItem' function's call in the following code:

float Arr[1000];
float maxValue =
   FindMaxItem(Arr, sizeof(Arr)/sizeof(float));

When you are sure that the code is correct and the implicit type conversion of the actual function argument does not cause errors you may use the explicit type conversion so that to avoid showing warning messages. An example:

extern int nPenStyle
extern size_t nWidth;
extern COLORREF crColor;
...
// Call constructor CPen::CPen(int, int, COLORREF)
CPen myPen(nPenStyle, static_cast<int>(nWidth), crColor);

In that case if you suspect that the code contains incorrect explicit conversions of memsize types to 32-bit types about which the analyzer does not warn, you may use the V202.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 17. Pattern 9. Mixed arithmetic.

V108. Incorrect index type: 'foo[not a memsize-type]'. Use memsize type instead.

The analyzer found a possible error of indexing large arrays. The error may consist in the incorrect index determination.

The first example.

extern char *longString;
extern bool *isAlnum;
...
unsigned i = 0;
while (*longString) {
  isAlnum[i] = isalnum(*longString++);
  ++i;
}

The given code is absolutely correct for the 32-bit platform where it is actually impossible to process arrays more than 'UINT_MAX' bytes (4Gb). On the 64-bit platform it is possible to process an array with the size more than 4 Gb that is sometimes very convenient. The error consists in the use of the variable of 'unsigned' type for indexing the array 'isAlnum'. When we fill the first 'UINT_MAX' of the items the variable 'i' overflow will occur and it will equal zero. As the result we'll begin to rewrite the array 'isAlnum' items which are situated in the beginning and some items will be left unassigned.

The correction is to replace the variable 'i' type with memsize type:

...
size_t i = 0;
while (*longString)
  isAlnum[i++] = isalnum(*longString++);

The second example.

class Region {
  float *array;
  int Width, Height, Depth;
  float Region::GetCell(int x, int y, int z) const;
  ...
};
float Region::GetCell(int x, int y, int z) const {
  return array[x + y * Width + z * Width * Height];
}

For computational modeling programs the main memory size is an important source, and the possibility to use more than 4 Gb of memory on the 64-bit architecture increases calculating possibilities greatly. In such programs one-dimensional arrays are often used which are then dealt with as three-dimensional ones. There are functions for that which similar to 'GetCell' that provides access to the necessary items of the calculation area. But the given code may deal correctly with arrays containing not more than 'INT_MAX' (2Gb) items. The reason is in the use of 32-bit 'int' types which participate in calculating the item index. If the number of items in the array 'array' excesses 'INT_MAX' (2 Gb) an overflow will occur and the index value will be determined incorrectly. Programmers often make a mistake trying to correct the code in the following way:

float Region::GetCell(int x, int y, int z) const {
  return array[static_cast<ptrdiff_t>(x) + y * Width +
                    z * Width * Height];
}

They know that according to C++ rules the expression for calculating the index will have 'ptrdiff_t' type and because of it hope to avoid the overflow. Unfortunately, the overflow may occur inside the subexpression "y * Width or z * Width * Height" for to determine them 'int' type is still used.

If you want to correct the code without changing the types of the variables included into the expression you should convert each variable explicitly to memsize type:

float Region::GetCell(int x, int y, int z) const {
  return array[ptrdiff_t(x) +
       ptrdiff_t(y) * ptrdiff_t(Width) +
       ptrdiff_t(z) * ptrdiff_t(Width) *
       ptrdiff_t(Height)];
}

Another decision is to replace the variables types with memsize type:

class Region {
  float *array;
  ptrdiff_t Width, Height, Depth;
  float
    Region::GetCell(ptrdiff_t x, ptrdiff_t y, ptrdiff_t z) const;
  ...
};
float Region::GetCell(ptrdiff_t x, ptrdiff_t y, ptrdiff_t z) const
{
  return array[x + y * Width + z * Width * Height];
}

If you use expressions which type is different from memsize type for indexing but are sure about the code correctness, you may use the explicit type conversion to suppress the analyzer's warning messages as follows:

bool *Seconds;
int min, sec;
...
bool flag = Seconds[static_cast<size_t>(min * 60 + sec)];

If you suspect that the program may contain errors related to the incorrect explicit type conversion in expressions you may use the V201.

The analyzer tries as far as possible to understand when using non-memsize-type as the array's index is safe and keep from displaying warnings in such cases. As the result the analyzer's behaviour can sometimes seem strange. In such situations we ask you not to hurry and try to analyze the situation. Let's consider the following code:

char Arr[] = { '0', '1', '2', '3', '4' };
char *p = Arr + 2;
cout << p[0u + 1] << endl;
cout << p[0u - 1] << endl; //V108

This code works correctly in 32-bit mode and displays numbers 3 and 1. While testing this code we'll get a warning message only on one line with the expression "p[0u - 1]". And it's absolutely right. If you compile and launch this example in 64-bit mode you'll see that the value 3 will be displayed and after that a program crash will occur.

The error relates to that indexing of "p[0u - 1]" is incorrect on a 64-bit system and this is what analyzer warns about. According to C++ rules "0u - 1" expression will have unsigned type and equal 0xFFFFFFFFu. On a 32-bit architecture addition of an index with this number will be the same as substraction of 1. And on a 64-bit system 0xFFFFFFFFu value will be justly added to the index and memory will be addressed outside the array.

Of course indexing to arrays with the use of such types as int and unsigned is often safe. In this case analyzer's warnings may seem inappropriate. But you should keep in mind that such code still may be unsafe in case of its modernization for processing a different data set. The code with int and unsigned types can appear to be less efficient than it is possible on a 64-bit architecture.

If you are sure that indexation is correct you use "Suppression of false alarms" or use filters. You can use explicit type conversion in the code:

for (int i = 0; i != n; ++i)
  Array[static_cast<ptrdiff_t>(i)] = 0;

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 13. Pattern 5. Address arithmetic.

V109. Implicit type conversion of return value to memsize type.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the implicit conversion of the return value type. The error may consist in the incorrect determination of the return value.

Let's examine an example.

extern int Width, Height, Depth;
size_t GetIndex(int x, int y, int z) {
  return x + y * Width + z * Width * Height;
}
...
array[GetIndex(x, y, z)] = 0.0f;

If the code deals with large arrays (more than 'INT_MAX' items) it will behave incorrectly and we will address not those items of the array 'array' that we want. But the analyzer won't show a warning message on the line "array[GetIndex(x, y, z)] = 0.0f;" for it is absolutely correct. The analyzer informs about a possible error inside the function and is right for the error is located exactly there and is related to the arithmetic overflow. In spite of the facte that we return the type 'size_t' value the expression "x + y * Width + z * Width * Height" is determined with the use of type 'int'.

To correct the error we should use the explicit conversion of all the variables included into the expression to memsize types.

extern int Width, Height, Depth;
size_t GetIndex(int x, int y, int z) {
  return (size_t)(x) +
   (size_t)(y) * (size_t)(Width) +
   (size_t)(z) * (size_t)(Width) * (size_t)(Height);
}

Another variant of correction is the use of other types for the variables included into the expression.

extern size_t Width, Height, Depth;
size_t GetIndex(size_t x, size_t y, size_t z) {
  return x + y * Width + z * Width * Height;
}

When you are sure that the code is correct and the implicit type conversion does not cause errors while porting to the 64-bit architecture you may use the explicit type conversion so that to avoid showing of the warning messages in this line. For example:

DWORD_PTR Calc(unsigned a) {
  return (DWORD_PTR)(10 * a);
}

In case you suspect that the code contains incorrect explicit type conversions to memsize types about which the analyzer does not show warnings you may use the V201.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 17. Pattern 9. Mixed arithmetic.

V110. Implicit type conversion of return value from memsize type to 32-bit type.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the implicit conversion of the return value. The error consists in dropping of the high bits in the 64-bit type which causes the loss of value.

Let's examine an example.

extern char *begin, *end;
unsigned GetSize() {
  return end - begin;
}

The result of the "end - begin" expression has type 'ptrdiff_t'. But as the function returns type 'unsigned' the implicit type conversion occurs which causes the loss of the result high bits. Thus, if the pointers 'begin' and 'end' refer to the beginning and the end of the array according to a larger 'UINT_MAX' (4Gb), the function will return the incorrect value.

The correction consists in modifying the program in such a way so that the arrays sizes are kept and transported in memsize types. In this case the correct code of the 'GetSize' function should look as follows:

extern char *begin, *end;
size_t GetSize() {
  return end - begin;
}

In some cases the analyzer won't display a warning message on type conversion if it is obviously correct. For example, the analyzer won't display a warning message on the following code where despite the fact that sizeof() operator's result is size_t type it can be safely placed into unsigned type:

unsigned GetSize() {
  return sizeof(double);
}

unsigned GetBitCount() {
  return static_cast<unsigned>(sizeof(TypeRGBA) * 8);
}

If you suspect that the code contains incorrect explicit conversions of the return values types about which the analyzer does not warn you may use the V202.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 17. Pattern 9. Mixed arithmetic.

V111. Call of function 'foo' with variable number of arguments. N argument has memsize type.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the transfer of the actual argument of memsize type into the function with variable number of arguments. The possible error may consist in the change of demands made to the function on the 64-bit system.

Let's examine an example.

const char *invalidFormat = "%u";
size_t value = SIZE_MAX;
printf(invalidFormat, value);

The given code does not take into account that 'size_t' type does not coincide with 'unsigned' type on the 64-bit platform. It will cause the printing of the incorrect result in case if "value > UINT_MAX". The analyzer warns you that memsize type is used as an actual argument. It means that you should check the line 'invalidFormat' assigning the printing format. The correct variant may look as follows:

const char *validFormat = "%Iu";
size_t value = SIZE_MAX;
printf(validFormat, value);

In the code of a real application, this error can occur in the following form, e.g.:

wsprintf(szDebugMessage,
          _T("%s location %08x caused an access violation.\r\n"),
         readwrite,
         Exception->m_pAddr);

The second example.

char buf[9];
sprintf(buf, "%p", pointer);

The author of this inaccurate code did not take into account that the pointer size may excess 32 bits later. As a result, this code will cause buffer overflow on the 64-bit architecture. After checking the code on which the V111 warning message is shown you may choose one of the two ways: to increase the buffer size or rewrite the code using safe constructions.

char buf[sizeof(pointer) * 2 + 1];
sprintf(buf, "%p", pointer);
// --- or ---
std::stringstream s;
s << pointer;

The third example.

char buf[9];
sprintf_s(buf, sizeof(buf), "%p", pointer);

While examining the second example you could rightly notice that in order to prevent the overflow you should use functions with security enhancements. In this case the buffer overflow won't occur but unfortunately the correct result won't be shown as well.

If the arguments types did not change their digit capacity the code is considered to be correct and warning messages won't be shown. The example:

printf("%d", 10*5);
CString str;
size_t n = sizeof(float);
str.Format(StrFormat, static_cast<int>(n));

Unfortunately, we often cannot distinguish the correct code from the incorrect one while diagnosing the described type of errors. This warning message will be shown on many of calls of the functions with variable items number even when the call is absolutely correct. It is related to the principal danger of using such C++ constructions. Most frequent problems are the problems with the use of variants of the following functions: 'printf', 'scanf', 'CString::Format'. The generally accepted practice is to refuse them and to use safe programming methods. For example, you may replace 'printf' with 'cout' and 'sprintf' with 'boost::format' or 'std::stringstream'.

Note. Eliminating false positives when working with formatted output functions

The V111 diagnostic is very simple. When the analyzer has no information about a variadic function, it warns you about every case when variable of memsize-type is passed to that function. When it does have the information, the more accurate diagnostic V576 joins in and V111 diagnostic will not issue a warning. When V576 is disabled, V111 will work in any case.

Therefore, you can reduce the number of false positives by providing the analyzer with information about the format functions. The analyzer is already familiar with such typical functions as 'printf', 'sprintf', etc., so it is user-implemented functions that you want to annotate. See the description of the V576 diagnostic for details about annotating functions.

Consider the following example. You may ask, "Why does not the analyzer output a V111 warning in case N1, but does that in case N2?"

void OurLoggerFn(wchar_t const* const _Format, ...)
{
  ....
}
void Foo(size_t length)
{
  wprintf( L"%Iu", length );     // N1
  OurLoggerFn( L"%Iu", length ); // N2
}

The reason is that the analyzer knows how standard function 'wprintf' works, while it knows nothing about 'OurLoggerFn', so it prefers to be overcautious and issues a warning about passing a memsize-type variable ('size_t' in this case) as an actual argument to a variadic function.

To eliminate the V111 warning, annotate the 'OurLoggerFn' function as follows:

//+V576, function:OurLoggerFn, format_arg:1, ellipsis_arg:2
void OurLoggerFn(wchar_t const* const _Format, ...)
.....

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 10. Pattern 2. Functions with variable number of arguments.

V112. Dangerous magic number N used.

The analyzer found the use of a dangerous magic number. The possible error may consist in the use of numeric literal as special values or size of memsize type.

Let's examine the first example.

size_t ArraySize = N * 4;
size_t *Array = (size_t *)malloc(ArraySize);

A programmer while writing the program relied on that the size 'size_t' will be always equal 4 and wrote the calculation of the array size "N * 4". This code does not take into account that 'size_t' on the 64-bit system will have 8 bytes and will allocate less memory than it is necessary. The correction of the code consists in the use of 'sizeof' operator instead of a constant 4.

size_t ArraySize = N * sizeof(size_t);
size_t *Array = (size_t *)malloc(ArraySize);

The second example.

size_t n = static_cast<size_t>(-1);
if (n == 0xffffffffu) { ... }

Sometimes as an error code or other special marker the value "-1" is used which is written as "0xffffffff". On the 64-bit platform the written expression is incorrect and one should evidently use the value "-1".

size_t n = static_cast<size_t>(-1);
if (n == static_cast<size_t>(-1)) { ... }

Let's list magic numbers which may influence the efficiency of an application while porting it on the 64-bit system and due to this are diagnosed by analyzer.

You should study the code thoroughly in order to see if there are magic constants and replace them with safe constants and expressions. For this purpose you may use 'sizeof()' operator, special value from <limits.h>, <inttypes.h> etc.

In some cases magic constants are not considered unsafe. For example, there will be no warning on this code:

float Color[4];

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 9. Pattern 1. Magic numbers.

V113. Implicit type conversion from memsize to double type or vice versa.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the implicit conversion of memsize type to 'double' type of vice versa. The possible error may consist in the impossibility of storing the whole value range of memsize type in variables of 'double' type.

Let's study an example.

SIZE_T size = SIZE_MAX;
double tmp = size;
size = tmp; // x86: size == SIZE_MAX
            // x64: size != SIZE_MAX

'double' type has size 64 bits and is compatible IEEE-754 standard on 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Some programmers use 'double' type to store and work with integer types.

The given example may be justified on a 32-bit system for 'double' type has 52 significant bits and is capable to store a 32-bit integer value without a loss. But while trying to store an integer number in a variable of 'double' type the exact value can be lost (see picture).

If an approximate value can be used for the work algorithm in your program no corrections are needed. But we would like to warn you about the results of the change of behavior of a code like this on 64-bit systems. In any case it is not recommended to mix integer arithmetic with floating point arithmetic.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 18. Pattern 10. Storage of integer values in double.

V114. Dangerous explicit type pointer conversion.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the dangerous explicit type conversion of a pointer of one type to a pointer of another. The error may consist in the incorrect work with the objects to which the analyzer refers.

Let's examine an example. It contains the explicit type conversion of a 'int' pointer to a 'size_t' pointer.

int array[4] = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
size_t *sizetPtr = (size_t *)(array);
cout << sizetPtr[1] << endl;

As you can see the result of the program output is different in 32-bit and 64-bit variants. On the 32-bit system the access to the array items is correct for the sizes of 'size_t' and 'int' types coincide and we see the output "2". On the 64-bit system we got "17179869187" in output for it is this value 17179869187 which stays in the first item of array 'sizetPtr'.

The correction of the situation described consists in refusing dangerous type conversions with the help of the program modernization. Another variant is to create a new array and to copy into it the values from the original array.

Of course not all the explicit conversions of pointer types are dangerous. In the following example the work result does not depend on the system capacity for 'enum' type and 'int' type have the same size on the 32-bit system and the 64-bit system as well. So the analyzer won't show any warning messages on this code.

int array[4] = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };
enum ENumbers { ZERO, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR };
ENumbers *enumPtr = (ENumbers *)(array);
cout << enumPtr[1] << endl;

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 14. Pattern 6. Changing an array's type.
64-bit Lessons. Lesson 15. Pattern 7. Pointer packing.

V115. Memsize type is used for throw.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the use of memsize type for throwing an exception. The error may consist in the incorrect exception handling.

Let's examine an example of the code which contains 'throw' and 'catch' operators.

char *ptr1, *ptr2;
...
try {
  throw ptr2 - ptr1;
}
catch(int) {
  Foo();
}

On 64-bit system the exception handler will not work and the function 'Foo()' will not be called. This results from the fact that expression "ptr2 - ptr1" has type 'ptrdiff_t' which on 64-bit system does not equivalent with type 'int'.

The correction of the situation described consists in use of correct type for catch of exception. In this case is necessary use of 'ptrdiff_t' type, as noted below.

try {
  throw ptr2 - ptr1;
}
catch(ptrdiff_t) {
  Foo();
}

More right correction will consist in refusal of similar practice of programming. We recommend to use special classes for sending information about the error.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 20. Pattern 12. Exceptions.

V116. Memsize type is used for catch.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the use of memsize type for catching exception. The error may consist in the incorrect exception handling.

Let's examine an example of the code which contains 'throw' and 'catch' operators.

try {
    try {
      throw UINT64(-1);
    }
    catch(size_t) {
      cout << "x64 portability issues" << endl;
    }
  }
  catch(UINT64) {
      cout << "OK" << endl;
  }

The work result on the 32-bit system: OKThe work result on the 64-bit system: x64 portability issues

This behavior change is connected with what on 64-bit system the 'size_t' type is equivalent to 'UINT64'.

Correction of the described situation consists in change of a code for achievement of necessary logic of work.

More right correction will consist in refusal of similar practice of programming. We recommend using special classes for sending information about the error.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 20. Pattern 12. Exceptions.

V117. Memsize type is used in the union.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the use of memsize inside a union. The error may occur while working with such unions without taking into account the size changes of memsize types on the 64-bit system.

One should be attentive to the unions which contain pointers and other members of memsize type.

The first example.

Sometimes one needs to work with a pointer as with an integer. The code in the example is convenient because the explicit type conversions are not used for work with the pointer number form.

union PtrNumUnion {
  char *m_p;
  unsigned m_n;
} u;
...
u.m_p = str;
u.m_n += delta;

This code is correct on 32-bit systems and is incorrect on 64-bit ones. Changing the 'm_n' member on the 64-bit system we work only with a part of the 'm_p' pointer. One should use that type which would conform with the pointer size as follows.

union PtrNumUnion {
  char *m_p;
  size_t m_n; //type fixed
} u;

The second example.

Another frequent case of use of a union is the representation of one member as a set of smaller ones. For example, we may need to split the 'size_t' type value into bytes for realization of the table algorithm of counting zero bits in a byte.

union SizetToBytesUnion {
  size_t value;
  struct {
    unsigned char b0, b1, b2, b3;
  } bytes;
} u;
   
SizetToBytesUnion u;
u.value = value;
size_t zeroBitsN = TranslateTable[u.bytes.b0] +
                   TranslateTable[u.bytes.b1] +
                   TranslateTable[u.bytes.b2] +
                   TranslateTable[u.bytes.b3];

A fundamental algorithmic error is made here which is based on the supposition that the 'size_t' type consists of 4 bytes. The automatic search of algorithmic errors is not possible on the current stage of development of static analyzers but Viva64 provides search of all the unions which contain memsize types. Looking through the list of such potentially dangerous unions a user can find logical errors. On finding the union given in the example a user can detect an algorithmic error and rewrite the code in the following way.

union SizetToBytesUnion {
  size_t value;
  unsigned char bytes[sizeof(value)];
} u;
   
SizetToBytesUnion u;
u.value = value;
size_t zeroBitsN = 0;
for (size_t i = 0; i != sizeof(u.bytes); ++i)
  zeroBitsN += TranslateTable[u.bytes[i]];

This warning message is similar to the warning V122.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 16. Pattern 8. Memsize-types in unions.

V118. malloc() function accepts a dangerous expression in the capacity of an argument.

The analyzer detected a potential error relating to using a dangerous expression serving as an actual argument for malloc function. The error may lie in incorrect suggestions about types' sizes defined as numerical constants.

The analyzer considers suspicious those expressions which contain constant literals multiple of four but which lack sizeof() operator.

Example 1.

An incorrect code of memory allocation for a matrix 3x3 of items of size_t type may look as follows:

size_t *pMatrix = (size_t *)malloc(36); // V118

Although this code could work very well in a 32-bit system, using number 36 is incorrect. When compiling a 64-bit version 72 bytes must be allocated. You may use sizeof () operator to correct this error:

size_t *pMatrix = (size_t *)malloc(9 * sizeof(size_t));

Example 2.

The following code based on the suggestion that the size of Item structure is 12 bytes is also incorrect for a 64-bit system:

struct Item {
  int m_a;
  int m_b;
  Item *m_pParent;
};
Item *items = (Item *)malloc(GetArraySize() * 12); // V118

Correction of this error also consists in using sizeof() operator to correctly calculate the size of the structure:

Item *items = (Item *)malloc(GetArraySize() * sizeof(Item));

These errors are simple and easy to correct. But they are nevertheless dangerous and difficult to find in case of large applications. That's why diagnosis of such errors is implemented as a separate rule.

Presence of a constant in an expression which is a parameter for malloc() function does not necessarily means that V118 warning will be always shown on it. If sizeof() operator participates in the expression this construction is safe. Here is an example of a code which the analyzer considers safe:

int *items = (int *)malloc(sizeof(int) * 12);

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 9. Pattern 1. Magic numbers.

V119. More than one sizeof() operator is used in one expression.

The analyzer detected an unsafe arithmetic expression containing several sizeof() operators. Such expressions can potentially contain errors relating to incorrect calculations of the structures' sizes without taking into account field alignment.

Example:

struct MyBigStruct {
  unsigned m_numberOfPointers;
  void *m_Pointers[1];
};
size_t n2 = 1000;
void *p;
p = malloc(sizeof(unsigned) + n2 * sizeof(void *));

To calculate the size of the structure which will contain 1000 pointers, an arithmetic expression is used which is correct at first sight. The sizes of the base types are defined by sizeof() operators. It is good but not sufficient for correct calculation of the necessary memory size. You should also take into account field alignment.

This example is correct for a 32-bit mode for the sizes of the pointers and unsigned type coincide. They are both 4 bytes. The pointers and unsigned type are aligned also at the boundary of four bytes. So the necessary memory size will be calculated correctly.

In a 64-bit code the size of the pointer is 8 bytes. Pointers are aligned at the boundary of 8 bytes as well. It leads to that after m_numberOfPointers variable 4 additional bytes will be situated at the boundary of 8 bytes to align the pointers.

To calculate the correct size you should use offsetof function:

p = malloc(offsetof(MyBigStruct, m_Pointers) +
           n * sizeof(void *));

In many cases using several sizeof() operators in one expression is correct and the analyzer ignores such constructions. Here is an example of safe expressions with several sizeof operators:

int MyArray[] = { 1, 2, 3 };
size_t MyArraySize =
  sizeof(MyArray) / sizeof(MyArray[0]);
assert(sizeof(unsigned) < sizeof(size_t));
size_t strLen = sizeof(String) - sizeof(TCHAR);

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 21. Pattern 13. Data alignment.

V120. Member operator[] of object 'foo' is declared with 32-bit type argument, but is called with memsize type argument.

The analyzer detected a potential error of working with classes that contain operator[].

Classes with an overloaded operator[] are usually a kind of an array where the index of the item being called is operator[] argument. If operator[] has a 32-bit type formal argument but memsize-type is used as an actual argument, it might indicate an error. Let us consider an example leading to the warning V120:

class MyArray {
  int m_arr[10];
public:
  int &operator;[](unsigned i) { return m_arr[i]; }
} Object;
size_t k = 1;
Object[k] = 44; //V120

This example does not contain an error but might indicate an architecture shortcoming. You should either work with MyArray using 32-bit indexes or modify operator[] so that it takes an argument of size_t type. The latter is preferable because memsize-types not only serve to make a program safer but sometimes allow the compiler to build a more efficient code.

The related diagnostic warnings are V108 and V302.

V121. Implicit conversion of the type of 'new' operator's argument to size_t type.

The analyzer detected a potential error related to calling the operator new. A value of a non-memsize type is passed to the operator "new" as an argument. The operator new takes values of the type size_t, and passing a 32-bit actual argument may signal a potential overflow that may occur when calculating the memory amount being allocated.

Here is an example:

unsigned a = 5;
unsigned b = 1024;
unsigned c = 1024;
unsigned d = 1024;
char *ptr = new char[a*b*c*d]; //V121

Here you may see an overflow occurring when calculating the expression "a*b*c*d". As a result, the program allocates less memory than it should. To correct the code, use the type size_t:

size_t a = 5;
size_t b = 1024;
size_t c = 1024;
size_t d = 1024;
char *ptr = new char[a*b*c*d]; //Ok

The error will not be diagnosed if the value of the argument is defined as a safe 32-bit constant value. Here is an example of safe code:

char *ptr = new char[100]; 
const int size = 3*3;
char *p2 = new char[size];

This warning message is similar to the warning V106.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 17. Pattern 9. Mixed arithmetic.

V122. Memsize type is used in the struct/class.

Sometimes you might need to find all the fields in the structures that have a memsize-type. You can find such fields using the V122 diagnostic rule.

The necessity to view all the memsize-fields might appear when you port a program that has structure serialization, for example, into a file. Consider an example:

struct Header
{
  unsigned m_version;
  size_t m_bodyLen;
};
...
size_t size = fwrite(&header, 1, sizeof(header), file);
...

This code writes a different number of bytes into the file depending on the mode it is compiled in - either Win32 or Win64. This might violate compatibility of files' formats or cause other errors.

The task of automating the detection of such errors is almost impossible to solve. However, if there are some reasons to suppose that the code might contain such errors, developers can once check all the structures that participate in serialization. It is for this purpose that you may need a check with the V122 rule. By default it is disabled since it generates false warnings in more than 99% of cases.

In the example above, the V122 message will be produced on the line "size_t m_bodyLen;". To correct this code, you may use types of fixed size:

struct Header
{
  My_UInt32 m_version;
  My_UInt32 m_bodyLen;
};
...
size_t size = fwrite(&header, 1, sizeof(header), file);
...

Let's consider other examples where the V122 message will be generated:

class X
{
  int i;
  DWORD_PTR a; //V122
  DWORD_PTR b[3]; //V122
  float c[3][4];
  float *ptr; //V122
};

V117 is a related diagnostic message.

Note. If you are sure that structures containing pointers will never serialize, you may use this comment:

//-V122_NOPTR

It will suppress all warnings related to pointers.

This comment should be added into the header file included into all the other files. For example, such is the "stdafx.h" file. If you add this comment into a "*.cpp" file, it will affect only this particular file.

V123. Allocation of memory by the pattern "(X*)malloc(sizeof(Y))" where the sizes of X and Y types are not equal.

The analyzer found a potential error related to the operation of memory allocation. When calculating the amount of memory to be allocated, the sizeof(X) operator is used. The result returned by the memory allocation function is converted to a different type, "(Y *)", instead of "(X *)". It may indicate allocation of insufficient or excessive amount of memory.

Consider the first example:

int **ArrayOfPointers = (int **)malloc(n * sizeof(int));

The misprint in the 64-bit program here will cause allocation of memory twice less than necessary. In the 32-bit program, the sizes of the "int" type and "pointer to int" coincide and the program works correctly despite the misprint.

This is the correct version of the code:

int **ArrayOfPointers = (int **)malloc(n * sizeof(int *));

Consider another example where more memory is allocated than needed:

unsigned *p = (unsigned *)malloc(len * sizeof(size_t));

A program with such code will most probably work correctly both in the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. But in the 64-bit version, it will allocate more memory than it needs. This is the correct code:

unsigned *p = (unsigned *)malloc(len * sizeof(unsigned));

In some cases the analyzer does not generate a warning although the types X and Y do not coincide. Here is an example of such correct code:

BYTE *simpleBuf = (BYTE *)malloc(n * sizeof(float));

V124. Function 'Foo' writes/reads 'N' bytes. The alignment rules and type sizes have been changed. Consider reviewing this value.

The analyzer detected a potential error: the size of data being written or read is defined by a constant.

When the code is compiled in the 64-bit mode, the sizes of some data and their alignment boundaries will change. The sizes of base types and their alignment boundaries are shown in the picture:

The analyzer examines code fragments where the size of data being written or read is defined explicitly. The programmer must review these fragments. Here is a code sample:

size_t n = fread(buf, 1, 40, f_in);

Constant 40 may be an incorrect value from the viewpoint of the 64-bit system. Perhaps you should write it so:

size_t n = fread(buf, 1, 10 * sizeof(size_t), f_in);

V125. It is not advised to declare type 'T' as 32-bit type.

The analyzer detected a potential error: 64-bit code contains definitions of reserved types, the latter being defined as 32-bit ones.

For example:

typedef unsigned size_t;
typedef __int32 INT_PTR;

Such type definitions may cause various errors since these types have different sizes in different parts of the program and libraries. For instance, the size_t type is defined in the stddef.h header file for the C language and in the cstddef file for the C++ language.

References:

Knowledge Base. Is there a way to make the type size_t 32-bit in a 64-bit program? http://www.viva64.com/en/k/0021/
Knowledge Base. Is size_t a standard type in C++? And in C? http://www.viva64.com/en/k/0022/

V126. Be advised that the size of the type 'long' varies between LLP64/LP64 data models.

This diagnostic message lets you find all the 'long' types used in a program.

Of course, presence of the 'long' type in a program is not an error in itself. But you may need to review all the fragments of the program text where this type is used when you create portable 64-bit code that must work well in Windows and Linux.

Windows and Linux use different data models for the 64-bit architecture. A data model means correlations of sizes of base data types such as int, float, pointer, etc. Windows uses the LLP64 data model while Linux uses the LP64 data model. In these models, the sizes of the 'long' type are different.

In Windows (LLP64), the size of the 'long' type is 4 bytes.

In Linux (LP64), the size of the 'long' type is 8 bytes.

The difference of the 'long' type's sizes may make files' formats incompatible or cause errors when developing code executed in Linux and Windows. So if you want, you may use PVS-Studio to review all the code fragments where the 'long' type is used.

References:

Terminology. Data model. http://www.viva64.com/en/t/0012/

V127. An overflow of the 32-bit variable is possible inside a long cycle which utilizes a memsize-type loop counter.

The analyzer detected a potential error: a 32-bit variable might overflow in a long loop.

Of course, the analyzer will not be able to find all the possible cases when variable overflows in loops occur.

But it will help you find some incorrect type constructs.

For example:

int count = 0;
for (size_t i = 0; i != N; i++)
{
  if ((A[i] & MASK) != 0)
    count++;
}

This code works well in a 32-bit program. The variable of the 'int' type is enough to count the number of some items in the array. But in a 64-bit program the number of these items may exceed INT_MAX and an overflow of the 'count' variable will occur. This is what the analyzer warns you about by generating the V127 message. This is the correct code:

size_t count = 0;
for (size_t i = 0; i != N; i++)
{
  if ((A[i] & MASK) != 0)
    count++;
}

The analyzer also contains several additional checks to make false reports fewer. For instance, the V127 warning will not be generated when we deal with a short loop. Here you are a sample of code the analyzer considers safe:

int count = 0;
for (size_t i = 0; i < 100; i++)
{
  if ((A[i] & MASK) != 0)
    count++;
}

V128. A variable of the memsize type is read from a stream. Consider verifying the compatibility of 32 and 64 bit versions of the application in the context of a stored data.

The analyzer has detected a potential error related to data incompatibility between the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of an application, when memsize-variables are being written to or read from the stream. The error is this: data written to the binary file in the 32-bit program version will be read incorrectly by the 64-bit one.

For example:

std::vector<int> v;
....
ofstream os("myproject.dat", ios::binary);
....
os << v.size();

The 'size()' function returns a value of the size_t type whose size is different in 32-bit and 64-bit applications. Consequently, different numbers of bytes will be written to the file.

There exist many ways to avoid the data incompatibility issue. The simplest and crudest one is to strictly define the size of types being written and read. For example:

std::vector<int> v;
....
ofstream os("myproject.dat", ios::binary);
....
os << static_cast<__int64>(v.size());

A strictly defined cast to 64-bit types cannot be called a nice solution, of course. The reason is that this method won't let the program read data written by the old 32-bit program version. On the other hand, if data are defined to be read and written as 32-bit values, we face another problem: the 64-bit program version won't be able to write information about arrays consisting of more than 2^32 items. This may be a disappointing limitation, as 64-bit software is usually created to handle huge data arrays.

A way out can be found through introducing a notion of the version of saved data. For example, 32-bit applications can open files created by the 32-bit version of your program, while 64-bit applications can handle data generated both by the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

One more way to solve the compatibility problem is to store data in the text format or the XML format.

Note that this compatibility issue is irrelevant in many programs. If your application doesn't create projects and other files to be opened on other computers, you may turn off the V128 diagnostic.

You also shouldn't worry if the stream is used to print values on the screen. PVS-Studio tries to detect these situations and avoid generating the message. False positives are, however, still possible. If you get them, use one of the false positive suppression mechanisms described in the documentation.

Additional features

According to users demand, we added a possibility to manually point out functions, which saves or loads data. When somewhere in code a memsize-type is passed to one of these functions, this code considered dangerous.

Addition format is as follows: just above function prototype (or near its realization, or in standard header file) user should add a special comment. Let us start with the usage example:

//+V128, function:write, non_memsize:2
void write(string name, char);
void write(string name, int32);
void write(string name, int64);
foo()
{
  write("zz", array.size()); // warning V128
}

Format:

"function" key represents name of the function to be checked by analyzer. This key is necessary – without this key addition, of course, would not work.
"class" key – non-necessary key that allows to enter class name to which this function belongs (i.e. class method). Without specifying it analyzer will check any function with given name, with specifying – only ones that belongs to the particular class.
"namespace" key – non-necessary key that allows to enter namespace name to which function belongs. Again, without specifying it analyzer will check any function with given name, with specifying – only ones that belongs to the particular namespace. Key will correctly work with the "class" key – analyzer then will check any class method with given name that belongs to particular namespace.
"non_memsize" key allows specifying number of argument that should not allow type, which size changes depending on architecture. Number counts from one, not from zero. There is a technical restriction – this number should not exceed 14. There may be multiple "non-memsize" keys if there is a need to check multiple function arguments.

Warning level in case of user functions is always first.

At last, here is full usage example:

// Warns when in method C of class B
// from A namespace memsize-type value
// is put as a second or third argument.
//+V128,namespace:A,class:B,function:C,non_memsize:3,non_memsize:2

V201. Explicit conversion from 32-bit integer type to memsize type.

It informs about the presence of the explicit type conversion from 32-bit integer type to memsize type which may hide one of the following errors: V101, V102, V104, V105, V106, V108, V109. You may address to the given warnings list to find out the cause of showing the diagnosis message V201.

The V201 warning applied to conversions of 32-bit integer types to pointers before. Such conversions are rather dangerous, so we singled them out into a separate diagnostic rule V204.

Keep in mind that most of the warnings of this type will be likely shown on the correct code. Here are some examples of the correct and incorrect code on which this warning will be shown.

The examples of the incorrect code.

int i;
ptrdiff_t n;
...
for (i = 0; (ptrdiff_t)(i) != n; ++i) {   //V201
  ...
}

unsigned width, height, depth;
...
size_t arraySize = size_t(width * height * depth);   //V201

The examples of the correct code.

const size_t seconds = static_cast<size_t>(60 * 60);   //V201
unsigned *array;
...
size_t sum = 0;
for (size_t i = 0; i != n; i++) {
  sum += static_cast<size_t>(array[i] / 4);   //V201
}
unsigned width, height, depth;
...
size_t arraySize =
size_t(width) * size_t(height) * size_t(depth);    //V201

V202. Explicit conversion from memsize type to 32-bit integer type.

It informs about the presence of the explicit integer memsize type conversion to 32-bit type which may hide one of the following errors: V103, V107, V110. You may see the given warnings list to find out the cause of showing the warning message V202.

The V202 warning applied to conversions of pointers to 32-bit integer types before. Such conversions are rather dangerous, so we singled them out into a separate rule V205.

Keep in mind that most of the warnings of this type will be likely shown on the correct code. Here are some examples of the correct and incorrect code on which this warning will be shown.

The examples of the incorrect code.

size_t n;
...
for (unsigned i = 0; i != (unsigned)n; ++i) {   //V202
  ...
}

UINT_PTR width, height, depth;
...
UINT arraySize = UINT(width * height * depth);   //V202

The examples of the correct code.

const unsigned bits =
  unsigned(sizeof(object) * 8); //V202

extern size_t nPane;
 extern HICON hIcon;
BOOL result =
  SetIcon(static_cast<int>(nPane), hIcon); //V202

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 15. Pattern 7. Pointer packing.

V203. Explicit type conversion from memsize to double type or vice versa.

The analyzer found a possible error related to the explicit conversion of memsize type into 'double' type and vice versa. The possible error may consist in the impossibility to save the whole range of values of memsize type in variables of 'double' type.

This error is completely similar to error V113. The difference is in that the explicit type conversion is used as in a further example:

SIZE_T size = SIZE_MAX;
double tmp = static_cast<double>(size);
size = static_cast<SIZE_T>(tmp); // x86: size == SIZE_T
                                 // x64: size != SIZE_T

To study this kind of errors see the description of error V113.

Additional materials on this topic:

64-bit Lessons. Lesson 18. Pattern 10. Storage of integer values in double.

V204. Explicit conversion from 32-bit integer type to pointer type.

This warning informs you about an explicit conversion of a 32-bit integer type to a pointer type. We used the V201 diagnostic rule before to diagnose this situation. But explicit conversion of the 'int' type to pointer is much more dangerous than conversion of 'int' to 'intptr_t'. That is why we created a separate rule to search for explicit type conversions when handling pointers.

Here is a sample of incorrect code.

int n;
float *ptr;
...
ptr = (float *)(n);

The 'int' type's size is 4 bytes in a 64-bit program, so it cannot store a pointer whose size is 8 bytes. Type conversion like in the sample above usually signals an error.

What is very unpleasant about such errors is that they can hide for a long time before you reveal them. A program might store pointers in 32-bit variables and work correctly for some time as long as all the objects created in the program are located in low-order addresses of memory.

If you need to store a pointer in an integer variable for some reason, you'd better use memsize-types. For instance: size_t, ptrdiff_t, intptr_t, uintptr_t.

This is the correct code:

intptr_t n;
float *ptr;
...
ptr = (float *)(n);

However, there is a specific case when you may store a pointer in 32-bit types. I am speaking about handles which are used in Windows to work with various system objects. Here are examples of such types: HANDLE, HWND, HMENU, HPALETTE, HBITMAP, etc. Actually these types are pointers. For instance, HANDLE is defined in header files as "typedef void *HANDLE;".

Although handles are 64-bit pointers, only the less significant 32 bits are employed in them for the purpose of better compatibility (for example, to enable 32-bit and 64-bit processes interact with each other). For details, see "Microsoft Interface Definition Language (MIDL): 64-Bit Porting Guide" (USER and GDI handles are sign extended 32b values).

Such pointers can be stored in 32-bit data types (for instance, int, DWORD). To cast such pointers to 32-bit types and vice versa special functions are used:

void            * Handle64ToHandle( const void * POINTER_64 h ) 
void * POINTER_64 HandleToHandle64( const void *h )
long              HandleToLong    ( const void *h )
unsigned long     HandleToUlong   ( const void *h )
void            * IntToPtr        ( const int i )
void            * LongToHandle    ( const long h )
void            * LongToPtr       ( const long l )
void            * Ptr64ToPtr      ( const void * POINTER_64 p )
int               PtrToInt        ( const void *p )
long              PtrToLong       ( const void *p )
void * POINTER_64 PtrToPtr64      ( const void *p )
short             PtrToShort      ( const void *p )
unsigned int      PtrToUint       ( const void *p )
unsigned long     PtrToUlong      ( const void *p )
unsigned short    PtrToUshort     ( const void *p )
void            * UIntToPtr       ( const unsigned int ui )
void            * ULongToPtr      ( const unsigned long ul )

Additional materials on this topic:

Knowledge Base. "How to correctly cast a pointer to int in a 64-bit application?"

V205. Explicit conversion of pointer type to 32-bit integer type.

This warning informs you about an explicit conversion of a pointer type to a 32-bit integer type. We used the V202 diagnostic rule before to diagnose this situation. But explicit conversion of a pointer to the 'int' type is much more dangerous than conversion of 'intptr_t' to 'int'. That is why we created a separate rule to search for explicit type conversions when handling pointers.

Here is a sample of incorrect code.

int n;
float *ptr;
...
n = (int)ptr;

The 'int' type's size is 4 bytes in a 64-bit program, so it cannot store a pointer whose size is 8 bytes. Type conversion like in the sample above usually signals an error.

If you need to store a pointer in an integer variable for some reason, you'd better use memsize-types. For instance: size_t, ptrdiff_t, intptr_t, uintptr_t.

This is the correct code:

intptr_t n;
float *ptr;
...
n = (intptr_t)ptr;

Such pointers can be stored in 32-bit data types (for instance, int, DWORD). To cast such pointers to 32-bit types and vice versa special functions are used:

void            * Handle64ToHandle( const void * POINTER_64 h ) 
void * POINTER_64 HandleToHandle64( const void *h )
long              HandleToLong    ( const void *h )
unsigned long     HandleToUlong   ( const void *h )
void            * IntToPtr        ( const int i )
void            * LongToHandle    ( const long h )
void            * LongToPtr       ( const long l )
void            * Ptr64ToPtr      ( const void * POINTER_64 p )
int               PtrToInt        ( const void *p )
long              PtrToLong       ( const void *p )
void * POINTER_64 PtrToPtr64      ( const void *p )
short             PtrToShort      ( const void *p )
unsigned int      PtrToUint       ( const void *p )
unsigned long     PtrToUlong      ( const void *p )
unsigned short    PtrToUshort     ( const void *p )
void            * UIntToPtr       ( const unsigned int ui )
void            * ULongToPtr      ( const unsigned long ul )

Let's take a look at the following example:

HANDLE h = Get();
UINT uId = (UINT)h;

The analyzer does not generate the message here, though HANDLE is nothing but a pointer. Values of this pointer always fit into 32 bits. Just make sure you take care when working with them in future. Keep in mind that non-valid handles are declared in the following way:

#define INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE ((HANDLE)(LONG_PTR)-1)

That's why it would be incorrect to write the next line like this:

if (HANDLE(uID) == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE)

Since the 'uID' variable is unsigned, the pointer's value will equal 0x00000000FFFFFFFF, not 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

The analyzer will generate the V204 warning for a suspicious check when unsigned turns into a pointer.

Additional materials on this topic:

Knowledge Base. "How to correctly cast a pointer to int in a 64-bit application?"

V206. Explicit conversion from 'void ' to 'int '.

This warning informs you about an explicit conversion of the 'void *' or 'byte *' pointer to a function pointer or 32/64-bit integer pointer. Or vice versa.

Of course, the type conversion like that is not in itself an error. Let's figure out what for we have implemented this diagnostic.

It is a pretty frequent situation when a pointer to some memory buffer is passed into another part of the program through a void * or byte * pointer. There may be different reasons for doing so; it usually indicates a poor code design, but this question is out of the scope of this paper. Function pointers are often stored as void * pointers, too.

So, assume we have an array/function pointer saved as void * in some part of the program while it is cast back in another part. When porting such a code, you may get unpleasant errors: a type may change in one place but stay unchanged in some other place.

For example:

size_t array[20];
void *v = array;
....
unsigned* sizes = (unsigned*)(v);

This code works well in the 32-bit mode as the sizes of the 'unsigned' and 'size_t' types coincide. In the 64-bit mode, however, their sizes are different and the program will behave unexpectedly. See also pattern 6, changing an array type.

The analyzer will point out the line with the explicit type conversion where you will discover an error if study it carefully. The fixed code may look like this:

unsigned array[20];
void *v = array;
....
unsigned* sizes = (unsigned*)(v);

or like this:

size_t array[20];
void *v = array;
....
size_t* sizes = (size_t*)(v);

A similar error may occur when working with function pointers.

void Do(void *ptr, unsigned a)
{
  typedef void (*PtrFoo)(DWORD);
  PtrFoo f = (PtrFoo)(ptr);
  f(a);
}

void Foo(DWORD_PTR a) { /*... */ }

void Call()
{
  Do(Foo, 1);
}

The fixed code:

Contents

Introduction

Analyzing projects

On Windows

On Linux and macOS

Continuous use of the analyzer in software development

Deploying the analyzer in cloud Continuous Integration services

Managing analysis results

Additional configuration and resolving issues

Analyzer Diagnostics

Additional information

PVS-Studio Messages

Contents

What bugs can PVS-Studio detect?

List of all analyzer rules in XML

General Analysis (C++)

General Analysis (C#)

General Analysis (Java)

Diagnosis of micro-optimizations (C++)

Diagnosis of 64-bit errors (Viva64, C++)

Customers Specific Requests (C++)

MISRA errors

Problems related to code analyzer

How to enter the PVS-Studio License and what's the next move

Contents

Windows: C, C++, C#

Microsoft Visual Studio

Compiler Monitoring UI

Command line analyzer for MSBuild projects

Linux/macOS: C, C++, C#

Windows/Linux/macOS: C#, Java

IntelliJ IDEA / Rider

Maven Plugin

Gradle Plugin

Quick start or what's next?

PVS-Studio Trial Mode

System requirements for PVS-Studio analyzer

Contents

Supported programming languages and compilers

Windows

Linux

macOS

Java

PVS-Studio Release History

Contents

PVS-Studio 7.11 (December 17, 2020)

PVS-Studio 7.10 (November 5, 2020)

PVS-Studio 7.09 (August 27, 2020)

PVS-Studio 7.08 (June 18, 2020)

PVS-Studio 7.07 (April 16, 2020)

PVS-Studio 7.06 (February 27, 2020)

PVS-Studio 7.05 (December 10, 2019)

PVS-Studio 7.04 (September 4, 2019)

PVS-Studio 7.03 (June 25, 2019)

PVS-Studio 7.02 (April 25, 2019)

PVS-Studio 7.01 (March 13, 2019)

PVS-Studio 7.00 (January 16, 2019)

Release history for old versions

Old PVS-Studio Release History (before 7.00)

Contents

PVS-Studio 6.27 (December 3, 2018)

PVS-Studio 6.26 (October 18, 2018)

PVS-Studio 6.25 (August 20, 2018)

PVS-Studio 6.24 (June 14, 2018)

PVS-Studio 6.23 (March 28, 2018)

PVS-Studio 6.22 (February 28, 2018)

PVS-Studio 6.21 (January 15, 2018)

PVS-Studio 6.20 (December 1, 2017)

PVS-Studio 6.19 (November 14, 2017)

PVS-Studio 6.18 (September 26, 2017)

PVS-Studio 6.17 (August 30, 2017)

PVS-Studio 6.16 (June 28, 2017)

PVS-Studio 6.15 (April 27, 2017)

PVS-Studio 6.14 (March 17, 2017)

PVS-Studio 6.13 (January 27, 2017)

PVS-Studio 6.12 (December 22, 2016)

PVS-Studio 6.11 (November 29, 2016)

PVS-Studio 6.10 (October 25, 2016)

PVS-Studio 6.09 (October 6, 2016)

PVS-Studio 6.08 (August 22, 2016)