C++ code analysis tools

Question

I\'m currently in the process of learning C++, and because I\'m still learning, I keep making mistakes.
With a language as permissive as C++, it often takes a long time to f

Answer 1

Turning on all compiler warnings (at least initially) and then understanding what they mean, how to fix the problems highlighted and which of the warnings represent genuine constructs that compiler writers might consider ambiguous is a good first step.

If you need something more heavy duty, you could try PC-Lint if you're on Windows, which is still one of the best lint tools for C++. Just keep in mind that you'll need to configure these tools to reflect your coding style, otherwise you'll get swamped with warnings and won't be able to see the wood for the trees. Yes, it costs money and it's probably a bit overkill if you're not doing C++ on a "getting paid for it" level, but I find it invaluable.

Answer 2

Tool support for C++ is quite bad compared to Java, C#, etc. because it does not have a context-free grammar. In fact, there are parts of the C++ grammar that are undecidable. Basically, that means that understanding C++ code at the syntactic level requires implementing pretty much a compiler front end with semantic analysis. C++ cannot be parsed into an AST independently of semantic analysis, and most code analysis tools in IDEs, etc. work at the AST level. This is part of the tradeoff you make in exchange for the flexibility and backwards compatibility of C++.