PC-lint is a commercial static code analysis

Static code analysis

Static program analysis is the analysis of computer software that is performed without actually executing programs built from that software In most cases the analysis is performed on some version of the source code and in the other cases some form of the object code...

 software tool produced by Gimpel Software for the C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

/C++

C++

C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...

 languages.

PC-lint is a command-line tool for developers, indicating suspicious or plain wrong issues in source code. PC-lint (or its multi-platform version, FlexeLint) can be integrated into IDEs

Integrated development environment

An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...

 as an external tool, and the format of the warning messages can be adapted to the form the IDE is able to recognize and process.

PC-lint can be used for quality assurance of C source code and checking the code for conformance to coding guidelines such as MISRA C

MISRA C

MISRA C is a software development standard for the C programming language developed by MISRA . Its aims are to facilitate code safety, portability and reliability in the context of embedded systems, specifically those systems programmed in ISO C...

or MISRA C++. It also includes checks for problems unique to parallel programs (built on POSIX threads) as written about by Andrey Karpov on the Dr Dobbs Journal site, June 2009.

Post Processing

The ALOA engine was originally released for free by Approxion and now resides at Sourceforge, providing regression reporting comparing multiple runs of lint.

Jon Zyzyck wrote about his report generator for PC-Lint in the February 2003 edition of Dr Dobbs Journal.

Visual Lint provides IDE integration as well as help to understand PC-Lint messages and customizable reports of the lint warnings.

External links

• Company Website - Gimpel Software
• commercial IDE integration Visual Lint
• ALOA open source regression product for comparing lint runs
• June 2009 Dr Dobbs article on Parallel Lint
• February 2003 Dr Dobbs article on post-processing PC-Lint