Checking C Programs with Lint: C Programming Utility

by Ian F. Darwin, Tim O'Reilly (Editor)

Overview

The lint program checker has proven time and again to be one of the best tools for finding portability problems and certain types of coding errors in C programs. This book introduces you to lint, guides you through running it on your programs, and helps you to interpret lint's output. lint verifies a program or program segments against standard libraries, checks the code for common portability errors, and tests the programming against some tried and true guidelines. linting your code is a necessary (though not sufficient) step in writing clean, portable, effective programs. Contents include:

• Overview of using lint
• Dealing with lint' concerns: casting and delinting
• lint comments
• Using lint in detail: command line options, using lint with make, rolling your own lint library
• Public domain programs
• Under the hood: an inside look
• Future directions

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780937175309
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/11/1988
Series:	Nutshell Handbooks
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	75
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.24(d)

About the Author

Ian F. Darwin has worked in the computer industry for three decades. He wrote the freeware file(1) command used on Linux and BSD and is the author of Checking C Programs with Lint, Java Cookbook, and over seventy articles and courses on C and Unix. In addition to programming and consulting, Ian teaches Unix, C, and Java for Learning Tree International, one of the world's largest technical training companies.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Preface
Scope of This Handbook
Conventions Used in This Handbook
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Using lint
Chapter 3. Dealing with lint's Concerns
Casting: Tell the Compiler You Know Better
/*LINT COMMENTS*/-Tell lint You Don't Care
/*NOTREACHED*/
/*ARGSUSED*/ and /*VARARGS*/
/*LINTLIBRARY*/
/*NOSTRICT*/ and /*CANTHAPPEN*/
Specific Problems: The Delinting Handbook
Chapter 4. Using lint in Detail
Command Line Options
Using lint with make
Roll Your Own lint Library
Chapter 5. Limits to lint
printfck
clash and shortc
cchk
check
Chapter 6. Under the Hood
Chapter 7. An Evaluation of lint
Chapter 8. Future Directions
Appendix A. The Ten Commandments for C Programmers
Appendix B. A Very Brief History of UNIX
Research
USG
Berkeley
Appendix C. Supplemental Programs
Bibliography
Index