Game-Changing Tools and Practices

Static analysis tools (see the sidebar onpage 7) are very useful for finding bugs. They go far beyond the capabilities of compilers (warnings) and coding standard checkers to which they are directly related. Like compilers when they generate warn-ings, static analysis tools aim to detect pos-sible run-time errors (e.g., buffer over-flow) and logic errors (e.g., variables not referenced after being assigned). Like cod-ing standard checkers, static analysis tools sometimes allow users to define their own set of patterns to flag. But static analysis tools generally perform much more sophisticated analyses than is typically found in compilers and coding standar