Static analysis runs Cppcheck with its MISRA C:2012 addon and puts every finding in Problems at its line. Cppcheck is the analyser the module drives today; the vendor analysers are listed on What's next.
Verification state: unit-tested on Cppcheck XML output fixtures. The integration test against a real Cppcheck exists and has not run in a verified audit; no Cppcheck version is verified. On the Embedded Linux side, Cppcheck 2.13.0 with the MISRA addon has run on Linux (see Embedded Linux).
Requirements
- Cppcheck 2.10 or newer, found on
PATHor throughneuralInverse.embedded.paths.cppcheck. - Python 3 that Cppcheck can run, for the MISRA addon.
- For guideline headlines and categories: a MISRA C:2012 rule texts file from your own licensed copy of MISRA C:2012. The texts are copyrighted by MISRA, so none ship with the Editor.
Run it
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| Run Static Analysis (Cppcheck, MISRA C:2012) | Analyses the project, with the compile commands of the active build |
| Run Static Analysis on Current File | Analyses the open file |
| Show MISRA C:2012 Compliance Summary | The summary of the last project run: tool and version, date, violations per guideline, recorded deviations |
| Clear Static Analysis Results | Removes the findings from Problems |
Cppcheck MISRA C:2012 findings in Problems and the compliance summary of the run.
Set neuralInverse.embedded.analysis.onSave to true to analyse each C or C++ source file of the project when it is saved.
Settings
| Setting | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
neuralInverse.embedded.analysis.misra | true | Check the MISRA C:2012 guidelines (with amendments 1 and 2) that Cppcheck's addon supports |
neuralInverse.embedded.analysis.misraRuleTexts | empty | Your rule texts file, in the format the addon reads (Appendix A as text), absolute or relative to the folder of CMakePresets.json. With it, mandatory findings show as errors, required as warnings, advisory as information |
neuralInverse.embedded.analysis.checks | warning, style, performance, portability | Cppcheck check groups besides its error checks, which always run |
neuralInverse.embedded.analysis.suppressionsFile | empty | Your approved deviations (below) |
neuralInverse.embedded.analysis.exclude | **/third_party/** | Globs of files to skip, such as vendored code |
neuralInverse.embedded.analysis.onSave | false | Analyse on save |
Without a rule texts file, guideline categories are unknown and the summary says so.
Record approved deviations
Write deviations in a Cppcheck suppressions file and name it in neuralInverse.embedded.analysis.suppressionsFile. One id[:file[:line]] per line, with the rationale in # comments above it:
# Deviation D-012, approved by the safety lead: the DMA descriptor cast is required by the hardware.
misra-c2012-11.5:drivers/dma.cDeviations in the suppressions file are listed in the compliance summary. cppcheck-suppress comments in the source also work, but are not listed there.
What the summary does and does not show
Cppcheck's MISRA addon does not check every guideline, and some guidelines cannot be decided by any tool. A guideline without violations in the summary is not shown to be complied with: record how each unchecked guideline is met before claiming compliance. The summary is evidence toward a MISRA C:2012 compliance argument; it is not a compliance claim.
Coding standards on save
Three checks run on save, with findings in Problems under the source Neural Inverse Embedded:
| Check | Setting | Default |
|---|---|---|
Every C, header and assembly file starts with your organisation's header ({year} stands for a year or range) | neuralInverse.embedded.standards.requiredHeader | Empty: not checked |
No run-time allocation (malloc, calloc, realloc, free, alloca, pvPortMalloc, vPortFree and similar) in the folders listed | neuralInverse.embedded.standards.noDynamicAllocationDirectories | Empty: no folder checked |
No #pragma once; guard headers with #ifndef, #define and #endif | Always on |
neuralInverse.embedded.standards.exclude (default third_party/**, build/**, out/**) lists files these checks skip.
Coding standards findings in Problems: a missing copyright header, dynamic allocation in a driver, and #pragma once in a header.
State: unit-tested; the integration test exists and did not run in the audit.
Stack usage
Build with GCC's -fstack-usage. The module reads the .su files and puts every function whose stack frame has no bound (a variable-length array or alloca) in Problems. Per-function frames also appear in the Firmware Memory editor.
This covers per-function frames from GCC, as STM32CubeIDE's Static Stack Analyzer does for each function. State: unit-tested on .su fixtures; GCC output from a real build is not verified.