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9 <title>Splint FAQ</title>
10 </head>
11 <body>
12 <!--#include virtual="header.html"-->
13 <h1>Splint - Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
14 <h3>Index</h3>
15 <ol>
16 <h4><a href="#genquest">General Questions About Splint</a></h4>
17 <li><a href="#quest1">What is the difference between Splint and LCLint?</a><br />
18 </li>
19 <li><a href="#quest2">What is the Splint logo?<br />
20 </a></li>
21 <li><a href="#quest3">Can I include Splint in my software distribution?<br />
22 </a></li>
23 <li><a href="#quest4">Can we use your software in our company? (We are not a GNU
24 organization.)<br />
25 </a></li>
26 <li><a href="#quest9">Which compilers does Splint support?<br />
27 </a></li>
28 <li><a href="#quest5">Does Splint handle C++?<br />
29 </a></li>
30 <h4><a href="#install">Installation</a></h4>
31 </li>
32 <li><a href="#quest6">I downloaded the Splint .tgz file but can't figure out how to
33 extract it. There is no 'z' option on the tar on my system.<br />
34 </a></li>
35 <li><a href="#quest7">I want to use Splint in Windows. How do I do that?<br />
36 </a></li>
37 <li><a href="#quest8">I have installed Splint for Windows 2000. Where should I put
38 the ".splintrc" file?<br />
39 </a></li>
40 <li><a href="#quest17">When I build Splint I get the following errors.... Should I
41 be worried?<br />
42 </a></li>
43 <li><a href="#quest18">I just installed Splint on a new machine. I get a bunch of
44 errors during building when the test suite is run. When I look through the results,
45 it seems like Splint is not reporting any errors in the code it analyzes. What is
46 going on?<br />
47 </a></li>
48 <h4><a href="#usage">Usage</a></h4>
49 <li><a href="#quest15">I heard that we will get lot of parse errors when we run
50 this tool first time. Hence we need to modify source code. Is it correct ?<br />
51 </a></li>
52 <li><a href="#quest16">I heard that Splint can generate some spurious errors ( not
53 genuine errors). Is it correct ?<br />
54 </a></li>
55 <li><a href="#quest10">How does Splint handle const?<br />
56 </a></li>
57 <li><a href="#quest14">I develop code on an embedded system with a compiler that
58 uses nonstandard key words and data types. I would like to run Splint on my code
59 but these nonstandard keywords cause parse errors. What should I do?<br />
60 </a></li>
61 <li><a href="#quest14b">How can I get Splint to recognize directory trees and local
62 source include directories?<br />
63 </a></li>
64 <li><a href="#quest20">I use realloc in my code. How can I get Splint in check this
65 code more effectively?<br />
66 </a></li>
67 <h4><a href="#warnerror">Warnings and Errors</a></h4>
68 <li><a href="#quest11">Why do I get a warning when multiplying different integer
69 types? The C standard says this is ok. Why is this wrong?<br />
70 </a></li>
71 <li><a href="#quest12">The C standard says that what I'm doing is okay. Why does
72 Splint give me a warning?<br />
73 </a></li>
74 <li><a href="#quest13">Splint complains if I ignore the return value of scanf but
75 not printf?<br />
76 </a></li>
77 <li><a href="#quest18b">I get parse errors when I try to run Splint on code like
78 #define MACROdebug(...) blahblah . Can I use variadic macros in Splint?<br />
79 </a></li>
80 <h4><a href="#bugs">Bugs</a></h4>
81 <li><a href="#quest21">I think I've found a bug in Splint. What should I do?<br />
82 </a></li>
83 <li><a href="#quest22">Splint tells me that there is a bug and I should report it.
84 What information should I send?<br />
85 </a></li>
86 <h4><a href="#adinfo">Additional Information</a></h4>
87 <li><a href="#quest23">My question isn't answered here. How can I get more
88 information about Splint?<br />
89 </a></li>
90 </ol>
91 <h3>Questions and Answers</h3>
92 <ol>
93 <h4><a id="genquest" name="genquest">General Questions About Splint</a></h4>
94 <li>
95 <p><a id="quest1" name="quest1">What is the difference between Splint and
96 LCLint?</a></p>
97 <p>Before 2002, Splint was known as LCLint. Splint 3.0 is the successor to LCLint
98 2.5.</p>
99 <blockquote>
100 LCLint was originally named for LCL, the Larch C Interface Language and lint, a
101 well-known C program checking tool. Because our tool has diverged from LCL, and
102 our focus now is on secure programming, it was renamed Splint. Splint's name
103 has (at least) three interpretations: specifications lint, secure programming
104 lint, and first aid for programmers. It's also easier to pronounce than
105 LCLint.<br />
106 <br />
107 </blockquote>
108 </li>
109 <li>
110 <p><a id="quest2" name="quest2">What is the Splint logo?</a></p>
111 <blockquote>
112 Thomas Jefferson's Serpentine Walls at the University of Virginia. The walls
113 are one brick thick, but because of their design are both strong and aesthetic.
114 Like a secure program, secure walls depend on sturdy bricks, solid
115 construction, and elegant and principled design.<br />
116 <br />
117 </blockquote>
118 </li>
119 <li>
120 <p><a id="quest3" name="quest3">Can I include Splint in my software
121 distribution?</a></p>
122 <blockquote>
123 Yes. Splint is licensed under the GNU General Public License. You may
124 redistribute it as you wish so long as credits and pointers to <a
125 href="http://www.splint.org/">www.splint.org</a> are not changed or removed.
126 Splint may be included in commercial distributions, and is included in several
127 Linux and freeware CDs. If you redistribute Splint, please let us know by
128 sending a message to <a
129 href="mailto:splint@cs.virginia.edu">splint@cs.virginia.edu</a>.<br />
130 <br />
131 </blockquote>
132 </li>
133 <li>
134 <p><a id="quest4" name="quest4">Can we use your software in our company? (We are
135 not a GNU organization.)</a></p>
136 <blockquote>
137 Yes, splint is GPL-licensed. Anyone may use it. If you want to redistribute it,
138 check the license for details or contact us.<br />
139 <br />
140 </blockquote>
141 </li>
142 <li>
143 <p><a id="quest9" name="quest9">Which compilers does Splint support?</a></p>
144 <blockquote>
145 Splint is independent from your compiler. It should be able to handle code written for any compiler as long as the code is C99 compliant. <br />
146 <br />
147 </blockquote>
148 </li>
149 <li>
150 <p><a id="quest5" name="quest5">Does Splint handle C++?</a></p>
151 <blockquote>
152 No. Splint handles ISO C99 (and some gcc extensions if +gnuextensions is used).
153 We don't have the resources (or the research justification) to build a C++
154 front end, but if you are interested in building a C++ front end the source
155 code is available, and I will certainly be willing to help.<br />
156 <br />
157 </blockquote>
158 </li>
159 <h4><a id="install" name="install">Installation</a></h4>
160 <li>
161 <p><a id="quest6" name="quest6">I downloaded the Splint .tgz file but can't
162 figure out how to extract it. There is no 'z' option on the tar on my
163 system.</a></p>
164 <blockquote>
165 Check to see if there is GNU tar on your system, it is usually invoked by the
166 command gtar or gnutar. GNU tar supports the -z option.<br />
167 <br />
168
169 <p>You can also unzip the file then untar it. Do: gunzip filename.tar.gz to
170 unzip then tar -xvf filename.tar</p>
171 </blockquote>
172 </li>
173 <li>
174 <p><a id="quest7" name="quest7">I want to use Splint in Windows. How do I do
175 that?</a></p>
176 <blockquote>
177 See <a href="http://splint.org/win32.html/">http://splint.org/win32.html</a> for instructions on obtaining and installing Splint on Windows.<br />
178 <br />
179 </blockquote>
180 </li>
181 <li>
182 <p><a id="quest8" name="quest8">I have installed Splint for Windows 2000. Where
183 should I put the ".splintrc" file?</a></p>
184 <blockquote>
185 For Win32, Splint looks for splint.rc instead of .splintrc due to the DOS
186 filename problems. It will look first in the current directory, then in
187 your home directory. See the Splint manual for more information.<br / >
188 </blockquote>
189 </li>
190 <li>
191 <p><a id="quest17" name="quest17">When I build Splint I get the following
192 error:</a></p>
193 <blockquote>
194 Checking for...<br />
195 <br />
196
197 <p>Checking manual...</p>
198 <p>cmx &gt; / Checking tests2.2...</p>
199 <p>Checking tests2.4...</p>
200 <p>Checking tests2.5...</p>
201 <p>Checking db1...</p>
202 <p>0a1,2</p>
203 <p>&gt; /cmx/tools/make -e clean</p>
204 <p>&gt; /cmx/tools/make -e check</p>
205 <p>*** FAIL ***</p>
206 <p>Checking db2...</p>
207 <p>0a1,/tools/make -e clean</p>
208 <p>&gt; /cmx/tools/make -e check</p>
209 <p>*** FAIL ***</p>
210 <p>Checking db3...</p>
211 </blockquote>
212 <p>Should I be worried?</p>
213 <blockquote>
214 Those diffs look harmless. It is likely that your make is set up slightly
215 differently than ours.<br />
216 <br />
217 </blockquote>
218 </li>
219 <li>
220 <p><a id="quest18" name="quest18">I just installed Splint on a new machine. I get
221 a bunch of errors during building when the test suite is run. When I look through
222 the results, it seems like Splint is not reporting any errors in the code it
223 analyzes. What is going on?</a></p>
224 <blockquote>
225 One possibility is that the installation directory where the test suite is
226 running is on the system path (hence, splint won't report errors if
227 -sysdirerrors is set, as it is by default). Try adding +sysdirerrors to the
228 command line for the test suite to see if that is the problem, or installing
229 Splint in a different directory not in the system path.<br />
230 <br />
231 </blockquote>
232 </li>
233 <h4><a id="usage" name="usage">Usage</a></h4>
234 <li>
235 <p><a id="quest15" name="quest15">I heard that we will get lot of parse errors
236 when we run this tool first time. Hence we need to modify source code. Is it
237 correct ?</a></p>
238 <blockquote>
239 Usually not.<br />
240 Parse errors usually occur in code written for compilers that use nonstandard keywords. (See the <a href="#quest14">question</a> on using Splint for code development on embedded systems.)<br />
241
242 If you're getting parse errors make sure that the required libraries are included by using the +posixlib or +unixlib flags. If you're using nonstandard gnu extensions the +gnuextensions flag make be helpful.<br />
243
244 However, Splint doesn't yet support all C99 extensions so there are some legitimate C programs that will need to be modified.<br />
245 <br />
246 </blockquote>
247 </li>
248 <li>
249 <p><a id="quest16" name="quest16">I heard that Splint can generate some spurious
250 errors ( not genuine errors). Is it correct ?</a></p>
251 <blockquote>
252
253 Yes. Many of the program properties that Splint checks are undecidable. This means that any static analysis tool that can be run on real programs will either produce false positives or false negatives. Because
254of this and to improve efficiency, Splint makes some simplifying assumptions. This means
255that Splint will occasionally produce spurious warnings or miss real errors.<br />
256
257However, often spurious errors can be fixed by adding additional annotations.<br />
258 </blockquote>
259 </li>
260 <li>
261 <p><a id="quest10" name="quest10">How does Splint handle const?</a></p>
262 <blockquote>
263 Splint doesn't interpret const (at all). See the manual section on modifies
264 checking (<a
265 href="http://www.splint.org/manual/html/sec7.html">http://www.splint.org/manual/html/sec7.html</a>).<br />
266 <br />
267 </blockquote>
268 </li>
269 <li>
270 <p><a id="quest14" name="quest14">I develop code on an embedded system with a
271 compiler that uses nonstandard key words and data types. I would like to run
272 Splint on my code but these nonstandard keywords cause parse errors. What should
273 I do?</a></p>
274 <blockquote>
275 <p>You can often use -D to solve this problem.</p>
276 <p>If you just want to ignore a keyword, you can add -Dnonstandardkeyword= to
277 make the preprocessor eliminate the keyword, where nonstandardkeyword is the
278 name of the keyword. Similarly, you can use -Dspecialtype=int to make a custom
279 type parse as an int.</p>
280 </blockquote>
281 </li>
282 <li>
283 <p><a id="quest14b" name="quest14b">How can I get Splint to recognize directory
284 trees and local source include directories? I've tried putting them in my path
285 but it doesn't seem to look beyond the current directory.</a></p>
286 <blockquote>
287 You can use -I to set the include path like you would with a compiler.<br />
288 <br />
289 </blockquote>
290 </li>
291 <li>
292 <p><a id="quest20" name="quest20">I use realloc in my code. How can I get Splint
293 in check this code more effectively?</a></p>
294 <blockquote>
295 realloc has complicated semantics that make it difficult to use correctly. Make
296 sure that you understand realloc and that you really need to use it.<br />
297 <br />
298
299 <p>If you decide to use realloc, we recommend that you wrapper it. The document
300 Using Wrapper Functions explains how to do this. That document is included in
301 the Splint documentation and is also available at:</p>
302 <p><a
303 href="http://www.splint.org/documentation/realloc.htm">http://www.splint.org/documentation/realloc.htm</a></p>
304 </blockquote>
305 </li>
306 <h4><a id="warnerror" name="warnerror">Warnings and Errors</a></h4>
307 <li>
308 <p><a id="quest11" name="quest11">Why do I get a Warning when multiplying
309 different integer types? The C standard says this is ok. Why is this
310 wrong?</a></p>
311 <blockquote>
312 There are lots of things that the C spec allows and defines clearly, that
313 Splint will provide warnings for. It's not a question of it being "wrong", it's
314 a matter of it being likely to reveal a programming mistake.<br />
315 <br />
316 </blockquote>
317 </li>
318 <li>
319 <p><a id="quest12" name="quest12">The C standard says that what I'm doing is
320 okay. Why does Splint give me a warning?</a></p>
321 <blockquote>
322 See the previous question.<br />
323 <br />
324 </blockquote>
325 </li>
326 <li>
327 <p><a id="quest13" name="quest13">Splint complains if I ignore the return value
328 of scanf but not printf?</a></p>
329 <blockquote>
330 This is just a strategic decision --- we view ignoring the result of a scanf to
331 be more likely to reveal a problem with the code than ignoring the result of a
332 printf, even though strict programmers will want to check printf also.<br />
333 <br />
334
335 <blockquote>
336 If you want stricter checking, use the flags +ansistrictlib, +posixstrictlib,
337 +unixstrictlib to select the strict versions of these libraries.<br />
338 <br />
339 </blockquote>
340 </blockquote>
341 </li>
342 <li>
343 <p><a id="quest18b" name="quest18b">I get parse errors when I try to run Splint
344 on code like #define MACROdebug(...) blahblah . Can I use variadic macros in
345 Splint?</a></p>
346 <blockquote>
347 Sorry, Splint does not yet support variadic macros. We hope to fix this in a
348 future release.<br />
349 <br />
350 </blockquote>
351 </li>
352 <h4><a id="bugs" name="bugs">Bugs</a></h4>
353 <li>
354 <p><a id="quest21" name="quest21">I think I've found a bug in Splint. What should
355 I do?</a></p>
356 <blockquote>
357 See <a
358 href="http://www.splint.org/bugs.html">http://www.splint.org/bugs.html</a> for
359 a list of known bugs and instructions on reporting bugs.<br />
360 <br />
361 </blockquote>
362 </li>
363 <li>
364 <p><a id="quest22" name="quest22">Splint tells me that there is a bug and I
365 should report it. What information should I send?</a></p>
366 <blockquote>
367 Ideally we would like enough code to reproduce the problem. Small snippets of
368 code which trigger the bug are the best but more code is also acceptable.<br />
369 <br />
370
371 <p>If we're not able to reproduce the problem, then we are unlikely to be able
372 to patch Splint. However, we would still appreciate hearing about the bug and
373 may be able to at least to offer you advice on working around the problem.</p>
374 </blockquote>
375 </li>
376 <h4><a id="adinfo" name="adinfo">Additional Information</a></h4>
377 <li>
378 <p><a id="quest23" name="quest23">My question isn't answered here. How can I get
379 more information about Splint?</a></p>
380 <blockquote>
381 First check the Splint manual and the mailing list archives.<br />
382 <br />
383
384 <p>The Splint manual is available at: <a
385 href="http://www.splint.org/manual/l">http://www.splint.org/manual/</a></p>
386 <p>The mailing list archives are at:</p>
387 <p><a
388 href="http://www.mail-archive.com/lclint-interest@virginia.edu/u">http://www.mail-archive.com/lclint-interest%40virginia.edu/</a></p>
389 <p>If you're still unable to find the information to answer your question, you
390 can try posting the question to the splint-discuss mailing list (see <a
391 href="http://www.splint.org/lists.html">http://www.splint.org/lists.html</a>)</p>
392 <p>You can also email us at splint@splint.org.</p>
393 </blockquote>
394 </li>
395 </ol>
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