How Static Code Analysis can change your life (for the better) Technical overview May 2008

Why Static Code Analysis is good Code Review is necessary and good! Static Code Analysis is a fancy name for automated Code Review Static Code Analysis is necessary and good!

What are major goals of code review? Possible goals Code compliance to company wide standard Identify (potential) bugs in code Identify design and implementation problems Peer education

Static Code Analysis is code review tool! Usually performed after the coding finished (after compilation, after integration build) Serves same goals as code review Excellent for enforcing compliance to standards Helps to eliminate certain bugs Helps to identify certain design/implementation flaws Provides certain educational value

SCA vs. peer code review “Goodness”

SCA to the rescue!

SCA – how it is done? For unmanaged code – source code is examined For managed code – MSIL is examined Different tools – different approaches On compiled code after assembly is built On compiled code during development Traditional - on raw code (text)

SCA with Microsoft tools FxCop (free) Visual Studio Team System 2005 Visual Studio Team System 2008 VSTS with Team Foundation Server

Demo FxCop 1.36 VSTS 2008 code analysis VSTS 2008 code metrics VSTS 2008 w/TFS: check-in policy VSTS 2008 w/TFS: Team Build

Custom SCA rules Not officially supported Complicated Yet Possible

Visual Studio 10 (Rosario) Based on Phoenix project Supported extensibility Similar framework for unmanaged/managed analysis Rulesets support (better management story) Data flow analysis

Static code analysis – why not? We already do code reviews Way too many rules Not clear what rules to use We must have different rules Too many violations to fix Who’s going to fix the violations? Hindrance to creativity Yet another bureaucratic invention

Implementing static code analysis Identifying appropriate rules Handling backlog Setting up the process Educating the team Staying agile!

Other tools of interest in SCA space SCA tools NDepend ( ReSharper ( CodeIt.Right ( Code Auditor ( Misc Simian ( Microsoft Line Of Code Counter Microsoft Framework Design Studio

Read of interest FxCop blog (blogs.msdn.com/fxcop)blogs.msdn.com/fxcop Nicole Calinoiu (msmvps.com/blogs/calinoiu)msmvps.com/blogs/calinoiu Partick Smacchia blog ( codebetter.com/blogs/patricksmacchia ) codebetter.com/blogs/patricksmacchia Krzysztof Cwalina blog (blogs.msdn.com/kcwalina)blogs.msdn.com/kcwalina MSDN Magazine: Security code review

Questions? (if time allows) Blog (teamfoundation.blogspot.com)teamfoundation.blogspot.com