The Application Hazard Scanner: Safety in Spite of Compiler Defects

Tuesday, September 14th, 2021

11:00-12:00 CEST (UTC+2)

Development of critical system’s software in compliance with functional safety standards (such as DO-178C and ISO 26262) is challenging. The development of such software in C/C++ can save huge amounts of time and money provided two crucial aspects are properly taken into account: compiler qualification and language subsetting. The goal of compiler qualification is to unveil defects that affect the compiler with your specific configuration and your set of options. Our experience shows that compiler qualification will discover defects in your compiler, no matter the number of certificates it sports. This does not mean compiler vendors are careless: language specifications and compilers are just very complex. Your next step is to make sure that your application is free of the code patterns that we now know to result in compiler errors. Unless your application code is small (say, less than 5,000 lines), this can be a huge effort, in which you must include future maintenance as well. This is why BUGSENG has created the “Application Hazard Scanner“. The Application Hazard Scanner is configured to specifically detect the defects found in the compiler for your specific use case. It is built with the renowned ECLAIR static analysis platform and so, it can additionally be configured to perform language subsetting analysis, e.g., for MISRA. It can be configured to be part of your continuous integration platform so that your application remains robust under future maintenance and development. Although the Application Hazard Scanner must be purposely configured for your specific set of compiler defects, the cooperation between Solids Sands and BUGSENG makes it a cost effective choice.

For this very special joint webinar our speakers will be:

• Marcel Beemster, Ph.D., co-founder and CTO of Solid Sands B.V., a 25+ years professional of compiler technology with a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Amsterdam;
• Roberto Bagnara, Ph.D., co-founder of BUGSENG, software verification expert and evangelist, professor of Computer Science at the University of Parma, member of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG14 (C Standardization Working Group) and of the MISRA C Working Group.

View recording