Author: Products, the Universe and Everything

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

This is a recommended maintenance update for Visual Lint 6.0 and 6.5. The following changes are included:

• Modified generated Vera++ command lines to replace the -showrules option with --show-rule. In consequence the minimum supported version of Vera++ is now 1.2.1.
  
• When a Visual Studio 2017 project using the /Zc:alignedNew or /Zc:alignedNew+ option is loaded the C++ 17 __STDCPP_DEFAULT_NEW_ALIGNMENT__ preprocessor symbol will now be included in the generated analysis configuration.
  
• Corrected the value of _MSC_FULL_VER referenced in the PC-lint Plus compiler indirect files for Visual Studio .NET 2002 and 2003 (co-rb-vs2002.lnt and co-rb-vs2003.lnt respectively).
  

Download Visual Lint 6.5.6.302

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

Visual Lint 6.0.7.289 is now available. This is a recommended maintenance update for Visual Lint 6.0, and includes the following changes:

• Fixed a bug in the "Analysis Tool" Options page which affected whether the "Use VS2012/VS2010 system headers for compatibility with PC-lint 9.00L or earlier" option was shown.
  
• Fixed a bug in the installer which could cause a malformed VsixInstaller command line to be executed when attempting to install the Visual Studio plug-in Visual Studio 2017 and Atmel Studio.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Visual Studio 2017 plug-in (VisualLintPlugIn_vs2017.vsix) which could cause it to fail to install with a manifest.json error.
  
• Fixed an intermittent crash when shutting down background analysis, reporting or control threads.
  
• Projects are now loaded at the same thread priority as the task loading the parent solution. This should make the UI more responsive during the loading of large solutions.
  
• Fixed a bug which was preventing solution load tasks from being aborted as quickly as they could be (e.g. when the active configuration is changed).
  
• Added additional PC-lint/PC-lint Plus suppression directives to the indirect file lib-rb-win32.lnt supplied within the installer.
  
• The RB_PLATFORM environment variable (which allows compiler indirect files to conditionally configure for specific platforms) is now defined within generated PC-lint and PC-lint Plus command lines for platforms other than Win32 and x86.
  

Download Visual Lint 6.0.7.289

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

Visual Lint 6.0.6.287 is now available. This is a recommended maintenance update for Visual Lint 6.0, and includes the following changes:

• Added PC-lint Plus specific compiler indirect files co-rb-vs6.lnt (Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0), co-rb-vs2002.lnt (Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002), co-rb-vs2003.lnt (Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003) and co-rb-vs2005.lnt (Microsoft Visual Studio 2005) to the installer.
  
• Modified the installer to correctly recognise Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3 installations.
  
• Fixed a bug in the installer which affected the installation of the Atmel Studio plug-in into AVR Studio 5.x.
  
• Added PC-lint Plus specific warning 550 suppression directives for the UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER, DBG_UNREFERENCED_PARAMETER and DBG_UNREFERENCED_LOCAL_VARIABLE macros.
  
  These suppressions are implemented in a new lib-rb-win32.h header file referenced by the existing lib-rb-win32.lnt indirect file supplied within the installer.
  

Download Visual Lint 6.0.6.287

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

Visual Lint 6.0.5.285 is now available. This is a recommended maintenance update for Visual Lint 6.0, and includes the following changes:

• Added PC-lint Plus specific compiler indirect files co-rb-vs2008.lnt and co-rb-vs2010.lnt.
  
• co-rb-vs2013.lnt and co-rb-vs2015.lnt now undefine the preprocessor symbols _CPPRTTI, _CPPUNWIND and _NATIVE_WCHAR_T_DEFINED which are hardcoded in the Gimpel supplied compiler indirect files. These definitions should not be hardcoded as Visual Lint will automatically define these symbols where required by the project configuration.
  
• Added additional suppression directives to the PC-lint Plus indirect file rb-win32-pclint10.lnt.
  
• Fixed a bug in the expansion of project variables within the "Command Line" page in the Analysis Configuration Dialog.
  
• If a category with no issues (e.g. "Internal Errors" in PC-lint Plus) is selected in the Message Lookup Display the "Title" and "Description" fields will now be correctly cleared.
  
• When multiple views of a file is opened for editing in VisualLintGui, the contents of the views are now correctly synchronised.
  
• VisualLintGui now captions the MDI child window tabs correctly when there are multiple instances of the same file open.
  
• Fixed a bug in VisualLintGui which prevented MDI windows from being correctly configured if more than one view of a particular file was open.
  
• Added a "Window | Close" command to VisualLintGui. The Ctrl+W accelerator and MDI tab "Close" command are now mapped to this command rather than "File | Close".
  
• Fixed a bug in the VisualLintGui "Window | Close All" and "Window | Close All Except" commands which manifested when more than one view of a particular file was open.
  
• The VisualLintGui "Window | New" command is now disabled if the active MDI child window is a web browser window.
  
• Updated the PC-lint Plus message database to reflect changes in PC-lint Plus RC2.
  

Download Visual Lint 6.0.5.285

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

The PC-lint Plus beta test phase is now complete, with three release candidates having been issued since the beginning of September by Gimpel Software (the PC-lint Plus vendor). The following statement has just appeared on the Gimpel website:

PC-lint Plus Release is Imminent

Our testing of PC-lint Plus is nearing completion and we expect a formal release of the product during the 4th quarter of 2017. Unlike PC-lint and FlexeLint, licensing of PC-lint Plus will be based on a Team License. To get a quote, please send an email to sales@gimpel.com with your company information, and a brief description of the Team, including the name of your Team and the number of developers (including consultants) that will be working on the source code that PC-lint Plus will be analyzing.

What is PC-lint Plus?

PC-lint Plus is a rewrite of PC-lint from the ground up. It combines the clang framework with Gimpel Software's 30+ years of static analysis experience to provide a product that supports the latest C and C++ standards and implements the leading edge analysis technology that Gimpel Software is known for. While PC-lint Plus is a new offering from Gimpel Software, it is largely backward compatible with PC-lint /FlexeLint. In particular, most of the same options and messages are supported by PC-lint Plus, indirect files work the same way, and flagship features such as Value Tracking, User-defined Function Semantics, and Strong Types are all available and many features have been significantly enhanced. Read More

While we are waiting for full details we are continuing our testing of the release candidates and (in particular) refining the PC-lint Plus compiler configuration and suppression files installed with Visual Lint. As with PC-lint 9.0, in due course we aim to include a full set of indirect files in the Visual Lint installer - including compiler indirect files for all versions of Visual Studio back to Visual C++ 6.0 - regardless of whether Gimpel provide them (so far PC-lint Plus only includes compiler indirect files for Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, 2013 and 2015). We have already authored compiler indirect files for Visual Studio 2008 and 2010, and others will follow. If you already have a PC-lint Plus RC installation, Visual Lint 6.0 can already analyse projects using both the 32 bit (pclp32.exe) and 64 bit (pclp64.exe) versions of PC-lint Plus and already includes a number of other features (for example multicore per-project analysis) to specifically support PC-lint Plus installations. If you have any specific queries about PC-lint Plus support, just let us know.

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

Visual Lint 6.0.4.281 is now available. This is a recommended maintenance update for Visual Lint 6.0, and includes the following changes:

• Microsoft Visual C++ Express Edition 2010/2012 system headers can now be used as a source of system headers for PC-lint 8.0/9.0 analysis of VS2013/15/17 projects.
  
• Fixed a potential crash in VisualLintGui if a corrupt window layout is restored on startup.
  
• Fixed a bug in the parsing of Visual C++ 2010-2017 project (.vcxproj) files in which the configurations are defined in an external property (.props) file located via a user macro.
  
• Fixed a bug in the parsing of Green Hills projects which affected whether some subprojects were read correctly.
  
• Various changes to the installer:
  
1. The installer now prompts for affected applications (Visual Studio, Atmel Studio, AVR Studio, Eclipse, VisualLintConsole and VisualLintGui) to be closed before installation can proceed.
   
2. The installer now installs VSIX extensions to Visual Studio 2017 and Atmel [AVR] Studio silently.
   
3. Revised the order of registration of the Visual Studio plug-in with each version of Visual Studio so that the newest versions are now registered first.
   
4. Uninstallation no longer incorrectly runs "Configuring Visual Studio..." steps if the VS plug-in is not selected for installation.
   
5. The "Installing Visual Lint" progress bar is now updated while Visual Studio, Atmel Studio and Eclipse installations are being registered.
   
6. Improved the logging of VSIX extension installation/uninstallation.
   

Download Visual Lint 6.0.4.281

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

Visual Lint 6.0.3.278 is now available. This is a recommended maintenance update for Visual Lint 6.0, and includes the following changes:

• Renamed the Visual Studio 2017 VSIX extension to VisualLintPlugIn_vs2017.vsix.
  
• Added a VSIX extension for Atmel AVR Studio 5.x and Atmel Studio 6.x/7.x as an optional component in the installer.
  
• Added support for the analysis of Atmel AVR Studio 5.1 projects.
  
• The "Analysis" Options page now allows more than 16 analysis threads to be selected on systems which have more than 16 logical cores.
  
• Fixed a bug which could cause the displays to be incorrectly configured when the Visual Studio plug-in is started within Visual Studio 2015 or 2017.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Analysis Statistics Display which affected the "Show/Hide all issues with this ID" context menu command.
  
• Fixed a bug in the Display Filter Dialog which affected the "Check selected Items" context menu command.
  
• Corrected the toolchain used for Atmel Studio 6.x projects from "AVR6.0" to "AS6.0". Note that this is a breaking change (but fortunately a minor one).
  

Download Visual Lint 6.0.3.278

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

Visual Lint 6.0.2.276 is now available. This is a recommended maintenance update for Visual Lint 6.0, and includes the following changes:

• Migrated the Visual Studio 2017 VSIX extension to VSIX v3 to prevent Visual Studio 2017 from issuing a "This extension is not compatible with Visual Studio 2017" warning when the VSIX extension is installed.
  
• Eclipse/CDT path variables of the form ${workspace_loc://include} are now internally aliased to ${project_loc}/include while expanding project include folder paths. This prevents issues expanding folder locations for projects which are physically located outside of the workspace.
  
• The Analysis Status and Projects Display context menu "Troubleshooting | Save Preprocessed File As..." commands no longer erroneously include a reference to a PC-lint environment indirect file on the generated command line. This prevents PC-lint Plus from issuing an erroneous error 900 message at the end of the preprocessed file, which could cause an analysis error when the file is subsequently analysed.
  
• Fixed a bug which could cause an out of date issue count to be displayed for a file while it was being analysed.
  
• Added a "Browse" button to the "Location" combo box in the VisualLintGui "Find in Files" Dialog.
  
• Updated the help to make it clear that VisualLintConsole and VisualLintGui can both analyse standalone projects as well as complete solutions/workspaces.
  

Download Visual Lint 6.0.2.276

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

Visual Lint 6.0.1.275 is now available. This is a recommended maintenance update for Visual Lint 6.0, and includes the following changes:

• Fixed a bug which could potentially prevent Visual Studio 2013/2015 projects from being analysed with PC-lint 8.0/9.0 using compatible system headers from earlier versions of Visual Studio.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused saved display filter settings to be lost when the product edition was set to one which does not support the global display filter. This ensures that the previous filter settings will be preserved if the display filter subsequently becomes available once again.
  
• Fixed a minor resizing bug in the "Send Feedback" Dialog.
  
• The "View Analysis Results" context menu command in the Analysis Status Display now correctly echoes the raw analysis results to the Output Window (Visual Studio) or Console (Eclipse) if the "Echo raw analysis results to the Output/Console Window" option is active.
  
• The "Echo raw analysis results to the Output/Console Window" option in the "Display" Options page is now disabled in hosts which do not support it. In Visual Studio, turning on the option also no longer requires Visual Studio to be restarted to apply changes.
  
• CppCheck analysis issues of the form "cppcheck: error: unrecognized command line option: "-foo"." are now correctly recognised as Fatal Errors.
  
• Added the "Send Feedback" command to the main toolbar in VisualLintGui and the Visual Studio and Eclipse plug-ins.
  
• When the analysis tool installation folder is changed in the "Analysis Tool" Options page or "Select Analysis Tool Installation Folder" Configuration Wizard page, the paths of the associated PC-lint indirect and help files will now be updated automatically where possible.
  
• Converted the "Raw issue ID filter" control in the Global Display Filter Dialog to a combo box.
  
• The initial folder paths in various file/folder dialogs are now set correctly.
  
• If the Visual Studio plug-in has been installed into Visual Studio 2017, installing a newer version will now first attempt to remove the previous version of the extension prior to installing the new version.
  
• The installer now copies the PC-lint Plus indirect file rb-win32-pclint10.lnt to the correct location.
  
• Added additional suppression directives to some of the Riverblade authored PC-lint Plus indirect files.
  
• Minor corrections to the comments within some of the Riverblade authored PC-lint Plus indirect files.
  
• Added a help topic for the "Send Feedback" Dialog.
  

Download Visual Lint 6.0.1.275

Products, the Universe and Everything from Products, the Universe and Everything

The first public build of Visual Lint 6.0 has just been uploaded to our website. As of today, Visual Lint 6.0 replaces Visual Lint 5.5 as the current supported Visual Lint version. Customers with active Visual Lint 5.x priority support, floating and site licence subscriptions should shortly be receiving updated licence keys for the new version, and upgrades for Visual Lint 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 4.x and 5.x per user licences should become available in our online store shortly. If you have purchased any full per-user Visual Lint licences since the start of October, your licence keys are already v6.x compatible so can start using the new version of the software right now without any need to upgrade. If you have purchased any upgrade licences during the same period, you will shortly receive new Visual Lint 6.x compatible licence keys. The new version adds more complete support for the forthcoming PC-lint Plus, as well as support for Visual Studio 2017 RC and many other improvements. Full details of the changes in this version are as follows: Host Environments:

• Added support for analysing standalone makefile projects.
  
• Added support for makefiles within custom project (.vlproj) files. This allows makefiles requiring additional parameters to be analysed more easily.
  
• Added support for Visual Studio 2017 RC. Note that the IDE will currently issue a warning that the extension is not compatible during installation.
  
• Speeded up the loading of solutions and workspaces by loading the projects within them in parallel.
  

Analysis Tools:

• PC-lint Plus crashes ("Serious Errors") are now parsed and reported as Fatal Errors with ID 399.
  
• PC-lint Plus messages 890-897 are now correctly recognised as referencing ("supplemental", in PC-lint Plus parlance) issues.
  
• Added PC-lint Plus specific compiler indirect files co-rb-vs2012.lnt, co-rb-vs2013.lnt, co-rb-vs2015.lnt and co-rb-vs2017.lnt, as well as a PC-lint Plus version of lib-rb-win32.lnt. All such indirect files are installed into the Visual Lint installation folder and referenced via -i directives on the generated PC-lint Plus command line.
  
• When a PC-lint Plus per-project analysis task which uses more than one thread is running, Visual Lint can now dynamically reduce the number of active analysis tasks to take account of the number of analysis threads launched by the analysis task. [Visual Lint Professional and Enterprise Editions]
  
• PC-lint and PC-lint Plus project indirect (project.lnt) files are now written when analysis tasks requiring them are created rather than when a solution/workspace is loaded.
  

Installation:

• If the Visual Studio plug-in is selected for installation, a VSIX extension (VisualLintPackage.vsix) supporting Visual Studio 2017 RC is now installed into the Visual Lint installation folder. If Visual Studio 2017 is installed on the target system, the installer will automatically attempt to run the appropriate instance of VsixInstaller.exe to install the extension into Visual Studio 2017 RC.
  

Configuration:

• When invoked, the Configuration Wizard now opens on the Analysis Tools page. As a result, the "Introductory" page has been removed.
  
• The indirect files listed in the Configuration Wizard PC-lint Compiler Configuration page are now sorted primarily by description rather than filename. This works better than sorting by filename as the naming conventions for MSVC compiler indirect files between PC-lint and PC-lint Plus are slightly different.
  
• Added an "analysis threads" option to the Command Line Options page to allow the value of the PC-lint Plus -max_threads option to be set on the command line in per-project analysis. [Visual Lint Professional and Enterprise Editions]
  
• Renamed the "Maximum background analysis thread count" option on the Analysis Options page to "Maximum background analysis tasks".
  

User Interface:

• Added a new Projects Display to VisualLintGui to provide a way of viewing the structure and properties of projects.
  
• Added a new Project Properties Dialog to provide a way of viewing (and in the case of custom projects, editing) project properties. The dialog is available via context menu commands in the Projects Display and Analysis Status Display.
  
• Added a new Project Variables Dialog to display the build variables defined in the associated project configuration.
  
• Added an "Issue IDs" control (similar to the one in the Analysis Statistics Display) to the Display Filter Dialog as an alternative to editing the raw issue filter directly. Note that this control will be hidden if the dialog does not have access to a list of the issues which can be detected by the current analysis tool.
  
• Added a new Makefile Properties Dialog. Where appropriate, the makefile command line can be edited here and the makefile output seen immediately.
  
• Replaced the discrete "Clear Text Filter" buttons in the primary displays with integrated ones built into the corresponding text filter edit controls.
  
• Added infotips to the Analysis Statistics Display.
  
• When the current host environment is changed (e.g. when projects for different versions of Visual Studio are loaded) the details are now reflected in the Status View.
  
• The "Analysis Tool:" message displayed in the Status View when Visual Lint starts now shows which host environment/project type the active analysis tool relates to.
  

Commands:

• Added an "Export Project" command to the Analysis Status Display context menu to export the current project as a custom project (.vlproj) file.
  
• Added an "Export Analysis Results" context menu command to the Analysis Status Display context menu.
  
• Added a "File | New Project" command to VisualLintGui to allow new custom projects to be created directly within the environment.
  
• Rearranged the VisualLintGui "File" menu and added accelerators to the "File | Open | Solution/Workspace/Project..." and "File | Open | Eclipse Workspace..." commands.
  
• Added a "Send Feedback" command to the main menus in VisualLintGui and the Visual Studio and Eclipse plug-ins.
  

Reports:

• HTML analysis reports are now displayed in the internal browser of the host environment (if available) by default.
  

Bug Fixes:

• The platform name is now inferred from the targetPlatform element while reading Eclipse C/C++ (.cproject) project files.
  
• Variables within file paths are now expanded correctly while reading IAR Embedded Workbench project files.
  
• The Analysis Status Display "Troubleshooting | View Project Indirect File" context menu command is now disabled if Visual Lint has not been configured for PC-lint analysis of the associated project type, or if the project is still loading.
  
• Fixed a bug relating to ProjectVersion elements within Atmel AVR Studio 5.0 project files.
  
• Fixed a potential bug when interfacing to CppCheck, which could have caused cppcheck.exe to be omitted from the analysis tool pathname under some conditions - potentially causing analysis errors.
  

Download Visual Lint 6.0.0.273