SonarSource Rules
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C

C static code analysis

Unique rules to find Bugs, Vulnerabilities, Security Hotspots, and Code Smells in your C code

  • All rules 315
  • Vulnerability13
  • Bug76
  • Security Hotspot19
  • Code Smell207

  • Quick Fix 19
Filtered: 7 rules found
unpredictable
    Impact
      Clean code attribute
        1. Arguments evaluation order should not be relied on

           Bug
        2. Keywords shall not be used as macros identifiers

           Code Smell
        3. Dereferenced null pointers should not be bound to references

           Code Smell
        4. Header guards should be followed by a matching "#define" macro

           Code Smell
        5. "memcmp" should only be called with pointers to trivially copyable types with no padding

           Bug
        6. Stack allocated memory and non-owned memory should not be freed

           Bug
        7. The "<stdlib.h>" functions "bsearch" and "qsort" should not be used

           Bug

        Stack allocated memory and non-owned memory should not be freed

        intentionality - logical
        reliability
        Bug
        • symbolic-execution
        • unpredictable

        Explicitly releasing non-heap memory leads to undefined behavior.

        Why is this an issue?

        How can I fix it?

        The free function and delete operator are used exclusively to release dynamically allocated memory. Attempting to release any other type of memory is undefined behavior.

        The following non-heap memory types may not be released:

        • Stack allocated memory - local variables or memory allocated with the alloca, _alloca, _malloca and __builtin_alloca functions.
        • Executable program code - function pointers.
        • Program data - global and static variables.
        • Read-only program data - constants and strings.

        What is the potential impact

        Trying to release non-heap memory using free or delete results in undefined behavior.

        When a program comprises undefined behavior, the compiler no longer needs to adhere to the language standard, and the program has no meaning assigned to it.

        The application will usually just crash, but in the worst case, the application may appear to execute correctly, while losing data or producing incorrect results.

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          Developer Edition
          Available Since
          9.1

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