Klocwork Insight

Klocwork Insight is used by software developers and development teams/departments/organizations to assist them in the creation of clean code. The product applies analysis of the developer's source code from within the developer's own IDE (integration plug-ins are offered for several environments, see below), reporting to the developer found defects and potential security vulnerabilities. With this information, the developer can correct the code before checking it into the main system for inclusion in the larger project.

The key primary feature of Klocwork Insight as touted by the vendor is its ability to apply source code analysis at the desktop level (at the developer's IDE), while still being aware of and applying the overall full system build context to the analysis; thus the vendor states the product is able to detect defects related both to the individual structure of the developer's code as well as those related to the code when placed in the context of the larger project.

The product supports development in C, C++, and Java, and can be integrated within multiple popular IDEs via automated plug-ins, including Eclipse, Visual Studio, IBM Rational Application Developer, IntelliJ IDEA, Wind River Workbench, and QNX Momentics. Additional integrations are listed/available for Gvim, Emacs, Visual SlickEdit, and more; and a command-line tool can also be utilized. Supported compilers include GNU GCC/G++, ARM, Visual C++, Sun Forte, Sun Java Compiler, and more. An included declarative language enables developers/shops to add their own custom analysis components to the product, allowing for the analysis of developed code against specific in-house requirements.

Klocwork Insight analyzes code towards the goal of identifying operational defects, security vulnerabilities, and architectural anomalies; including such items as null pointer dereferences, memory leaks, buffer overflows and code injection vulnerabilities, deadlocks, SQL injection vulnerabilities, and more. Detail information is provided to the developer for defects found, discussing both the nature of the problem as well as examples of how such a problem could be exploited by bad guys.

For architects and administrators, the product provides both code structure visualization tools as well as capture and reporting of system metrics. Visualizations are driven by an analysis of code design taken directly from existing source code; allowing for what-if types of analysis via the visual examination/manipulation of the physical structure of the application, including component dependency reporting and header file structure optimization features. Over 100 metrics, including process, resource, and environment statistics are collected and can be reported by the platform; including the types of bugs that are being found and fixed at the desktop, and trending reports.

New in the latest release of Klocwork Insight are enhancements to the Java Analysis engine that specifically enable the direct examination of static source code (as opposed to byte-code level analysis); a method that the vendor states removes the analysis engine's dependency on knowledge of a specific compiler's idiosyncracies, as well as improves the readability of resulting found defect descriptions.

Klocwork Insight is available in a Java only version, and a C/C++ and Java version.

Visit the vendor's Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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