I love C and C++ compiler warnings, particularly when I can fix the problems they show. I love getting new warnings for code I thought was clean. There are always a few warnings that show serious mistakes.

I recently noticed that, since 2011, jhbuild can do some extra static code analysis, using clang’s scan-build tool. This is thanks to Jeremy Huddleston and friends.

It’s pretty simple, though I don’t think it’s in the jhbuild manual yet. It should work if you just install scan-build (from your distro package, such as the clang-analyzer package on Fedora), and add this line to your .config/jhbuildrc file in your home directory:

static_analyzer = True

My scan-build here on Fedora 19 didn’t seem to find its own clang executable, so I had to add this line too:

static_analyzer_template = 'scan-build --use-analyzer=/usr/bin/clang -v -o %(outputdir)s/%(module)s'

I wonder if any systems are running this regularly. I’d like to just view it online every now and then. My local /tmp/jhbuild_static_analyzer/ directory is full of lovely scan-build reports for various GNOME modules but I’m sure others would enjoy that bounty.