1splint(1) General Commands Manual splint(1)
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9 splint - A tool for statically checking C programs
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13 splint [options]
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17 Splint is a tool for statically checking C programs for security vul‐
18 nerabilities and common programming mistakes. With minimal effort,
19 Splint can be used as a better lint(1).If additional effort is invested
20 adding annotations to programs, Splint can perform stronger checks than
21 can be done by any standard lint. For full documentation, please see
22 http://www.splint.org. This man page only covers a few of the avail‐
23 able options.
24
27 -help Shows help
28 Initialization
31 These flags control directories and files used by Splint. They may be
33 used from the command line or in an options file, but may not be used
34 as control comments in the source code. Except where noted. they have
35 the same meaning preceded by - or +.
36 -tmpdir directory
39 Set directory for writing temp files. Default is /tmp/.
40 -I directory
43 Add directory to path searched for C include files. Note there is
44 no space after the I, to be consistent with C preprocessor flags.
45 -S directory
48 Add directory to path search for .lcl specification files.
49 -f file
52 Load options file <file>. If this flag is used from the command
53 line, the default ~/.splintrc file is not loaded. This flag may
54 be used in an options file to load in another options file.
55 -nof Prevents the default options files (./.splintrc and ~/.splintrc)
58 from being loaded. (Setting -nof overrides +nof, causing the
59 options files to be loaded normally.)
60 -systemdirs directories
63 Set directories for system files (default is "/usr/include").
64 Separate directories with colons (e.g.,
65 "/usr/include:/usr/local/lib"). Flag settings propagate to files
66 in a system directory. If -systemdirerrors is set, no errors are
67 reported for files in system directories.
68 Pre-processor
71 These flags are used to define or undefine pre-processor constants.
73 The -I<directory> flag is also passed to the C pre-processor.
74 -D initializer
77 Passed to the C pre-processor.
78 -U initializer
81 Passed to the C pre-processor
82 Libraries These flags control the creation and use of libraries.
85 -dump file
88 Save state in <file> for loading. The default extension .lcd is
89 added if <file> has no extension.
90 -load file
93 Load state from <file> (created by -dump). The default extension
94 .lcd is added if <file> has no extension. Only one library file
95 may be loaded.
96 By default, the standard library is loaded if the -load flag is
98 not used to load a user library. If no user library is loaded,
99 one of the following flags may be used to select a different
100 standard library. Precede the flag by + to load the described
101 library (or prevent a library from being loaded using nolib). See
102 Apppendix F for information on the provided libraries.
103 -nolib
106 Do not load any library. This prevents the standard library from
107 being loaded.
108 -ansi-lib
111 Use the ANSI standard library (selected by default).
112 -strict-lib
115 Use strict version of the ANSI standard library.
116 -posix-lib
119 Use the POSIX standard library.
120 -posix-strict-lib
123 Use the strict version of the POSIX standard library.
124 -1-lib
127 Use UNIX version of standard library.
128 -1-strict-lib
131 Use the strict version of the UNIX standard library.
132 Output
135 These flags control what additional information is printed by Splint.
137 Setting +<flag> causes the described information to be printed; setting
138 -<flag> prevents it. By default, all these flags are off.
139 -usestderr
142 Send error messages to standard error (instead of standard out).
143 -showsummary
146 Show a summary of all errors reported and suppressed. Counts of
147 suppressed errors are not necessarily correct since turning a
148 flag off may prevent some checking from being done to save compu‐
149 tation, and errors that are not reported may propagate differ‐
150 ently from when they are reported.
151 -showscan
154 Show file names are they are processed.
155 -showalluses
158 Show list of uses of all external identifiers sorted by number of
159 uses.
160 -stats
163 Display number of lines processed and checking time.
164 -timedist
167 Display distribution of where checking time is spent.
168 -quiet
171 Suppress herald and error count. (If quiet is not set, Splint
172 prints out a herald with version information before checking
173 begins, and a line summarizing the total number of errors
174 reported.)
175 -whichlib
178 Print out the standard library filename and creation information.
179 -limit number
182 At most <number> similar errors are reported consecutively. Fur‐
183 ther errors are suppressed, and a message showing the number of
184 suppressed messages is printed.
185 Expected Errors
188 Normally, Splint will expect to report no errors. The exit status will
190 be success (0) if no errors are reported, and failure if any errors are
191 reported. Flags can be used to set the expected number of reported
192 errors. Because of the provided error suppression mechanisms, these
193 options should probably not be used for final checking real programs
194 but may be useful in developing programs using make.
195 -expect <number>
198 Exactly <number> code errors are expected. Splint will exit with
199 failure exit status unless <number> code errors are detected.
200 -Message Format
203 These flags control how messages are printed. They may be set at
204 the command line, in options files, or locally in syntactic com‐
205 ments. The linelen and limit flags may be preceded by + or - with
206 the same meaning; for the other flags, + turns on the describe
207 printing and - turns it off. The box to the left of each flag
208 gives its default value.
209 -showcolumn
212 Show column number where error is found. Default: +
213 -showfunc
216 Show name of function (or macro) definition containing error. The
217 function name is printed once before the first message detected
218 in that function. Default: +
219 -showallconjs
222 Show all possible alternate types (see Section 8.2.2). Default: -
223 -paren-file-format
226 Use file(line) format in messages.
227 -hints
230 Provide hints describing an error and how a message may be sup‐
231 pressed for the first error reported in each error class.
232 Default: +
233 -forcehints
236 Provide hints for all errors reported, even if the hint has
237 already been displayed for the same error class. Default: -
238 -linelen number
241 Set length of maximum message line to <number> characters. Splint
242 will split messages longer than <number> characters long into
243 multiple lines. Default: 80
244 Mode Selector Flags
247 Mode selects flags set the mode checking flags to predefined values.
249 They provide a quick coarse-grain way of controlling what classes of
250 errors are reported. Specific checking flags may be set after a mode
251 flag to override the mode settings. Mode flags may be used locally,
252 however the mode settings will override specific command line flag set‐
253 tings. A warning is produced if a mode flag is used after a mode check‐
254 ing flag has been set.
255 These are brief descriptions to give a general idea of what each mode
257 does. To see the complete flag settings in each mode, use splint -help
258 modes. A mode flag has the same effect when used with either + or -.
259 -weak Weak checking, intended for typical unannotated C code. No modi‐
262 fies checking, macro checking, rep exposure, or clean interface
263 checking is done. Return values of type int may be ignored. The
264 types bool, int, char and user-defined enum types are all equiva‐
265 lent. Old style declarations are unreported.
266 -standard
269 The default mode. All checking done by weak, plus modifies check‐
270 ing, global alias checking, use all parameters, using released
271 storage, ignored return values or any type, macro checking,
272 unreachable code, infinite loops, and fall-through cases. The
273 types bool, int and char are distinct. Old style declarations
274 are reported.
275 -checks
278 Moderately strict checking. All checking done by standard, plus
279 must modification checking, rep exposure, return alias, memory
280 management and complete interfaces.
281 -strict
284 Absurdly strict checking. All checking done by checks, plus modi‐
285 fications and global variables used in unspecified functions,
286 strict standard library, and strict typing of C operators. A spe‐
287 cial reward will be presented to the first person to produce a
288 real program that produces no errors with strict checking.
289
292 If you need to get in contact with the authors send email to
293 ⟨mailto:info@splint.org⟩
294 or visit ⟨http://www.splint.org⟩
296
299 lint(1)
300 A tool for statically checking C programs splint(1)