What are the best tools to analyze large C++ code bases?

Question

DevelopmentAnalyzer

What are the best tools to analyze large C++ code bases?

3

Options
Considered

4

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Recs.

Dec 29, 2020

Last
Updated

3 Options Considered

Best tools to analyze large C++ code bases	Price	Platforms	License
-- Cppcheck	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac	-
-- Doxygen	-	Windows, Linux, Mac OSX	GPL v2
-- Understand	-	-	-

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score 1 · Answer 1

Cppcheck

Top Pro

Different output formats

Cppcheck allows the user to output the compiled source bugs to in a personalized fashion. It contains the ability to modify the output templates allowing for very simple user analysis. Adjust the output to suit your preferred format, or write your own! See More

Top Con

False Positives

As with any static analyzer it is impossible to get it perfect. Each project may produce errors even though the code behaves correctly. This result will vary different between code checks. All static analyzers are striving to achieve zero false positives. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

A static analysis tool for C/C++ code. Unlike many other analysis tools it does not detect syntax errors in the code, instead it looks for memory leaks, mismatching allocation-deallocation, buffer overrun, and many other issues. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Updated regularly

With each update comes new checks and a closer opportunity for zero false positives. Updates also include improvements to the algorithms and performance of the analyzer. See More

Top Con

Limited ability to find Bugs

Cppcheck is not competitive with other tools like clang static analyzer in order find bugs. E.g. a simple nullpointer access isn't detected by cppcheck if it is function or method return value, whereas clang easily finds such bugs. See More

Top Pro

Fast

Top Pro

Plugins

Plugins for Visual Studio, Jenkins etc. See More

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score 1 · Answer 2

Doxygen

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Doxygen is compatible with multiple languages. Including but not limited to: C, Objective-C, C#, C++, Java, Python, PHP etc. See More

Top Con

No recursive inclusion

For example, if you specify INCLUDE_PATH=incl, it doesn't search other folders included in the incl folder (incl/sub1 or incl/sub2) and there's no option to turn on recursive inclusion. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac OSX

License:GPL v2

Output Format:HTML, RTF (MS-Word), PostScript, hyperlinked PDF, compressed HTML, and Unix man pages

Python version compatibility:2 and 3

Top Pro

Generates documentation from comments

Doxygen can generate documentation from formatted comments in the source code. This is extremely useful when writing detailed man pages. See More

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score 2 · Answer 3

Understand

Top Pro

Easy to navigate and a great number of useful trees and cross reference tools

KindHumbaba's Experience

I've been an understand user for 15+ years, and it's my goto tool for static analysis of large complex code bases See More

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What are the best tools to analyze large C++ code bases?

3 Options Considered

Cppcheck

My Recommendation for Cppcheck

My Recommendation for Cppcheck

Different output formats

False Positives

Updated regularly

Limited ability to find Bugs

Fast

Plugins

Doxygen

My Recommendation for Doxygen

My Recommendation for Doxygen

Cross-platform

No recursive inclusion

Generates documentation from comments

Understand

My Recommendation for Understand

My Recommendation for Understand

Easy to navigate and a great number of useful trees and cross reference tools

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