Program Analysis Tools in Software Engineering

The goal of developing software that is reliable, safe and effective is crucial in the dynamic and always changing field of software development. Programme Analysis Tools are a developer’s greatest support on this trip, giving them invaluable knowledge about the inner workings of their code. In this article, we’ll learn about it’s importance and classification.

What is Program Analysis Tool?

Program Analysis Tool is an automated tool whose input is the source code or the executable code of a program and the output is the observation of characteristics of the program. It gives various characteristics of the program such as its size, complexity, adequacy of commenting, adherence to programming standards and many other characteristics. These tools are essential to software engineering because they help programmers comprehend, improve and maintain software systems over the course of the whole development life cycle.

Importance of Program Analysis Tools

  1. Finding faults and Security Vulnerabilities in the Code: Automatic programme analysis tools can find and highlight possible faults, security flaws and bugs in the code. This lowers the possibility that bugs will get it into production by assisting developers in identifying problems early in the process.
  2. Memory Leak Detection: Certain tools are designed specifically to find memory leaks and inefficiencies. By doing so, developers may make sure that their software doesn’t gradually use up too much memory.
  3. Vulnerability Detection: Potential vulnerabilities like buffer overflows, injection attacks or other security flaws can be found using programme analysis tools, particularly those that are security-focused. For the development of reliable and secure software, this is essential.
  4. Dependency analysis: By examining the dependencies among various system components, tools can assist developers in comprehending and controlling the connections between modules. This is necessary in order to make well-informed decisions during refactoring.
  5. Automated Testing Support: To automate testing procedures, CI/CD pipelines frequently combine programme analysis tools. Only well-tested, high-quality code is released into production thanks to this integration, helping in identifying problems early in the development cycle.

Classification of Program Analysis Tools

Program Analysis Tools are classified into two categories:

1. Static Program Analysis Tools

Static Program Analysis Tool is such a program analysis tool that evaluates and computes various characteristics of a software product without executing it. Normally, static program analysis tools analyze some structural representation of a program to reach a certain analytical conclusion. Basically some structural properties are analyzed using static program analysis tools. The structural properties that are usually analyzed are:

  1. Whether the coding standards have been fulfilled or not.
  2. Some programming errors such as uninitialized variables.
  3. Mismatch between actual and formal parameters.
  4. Variables that are declared but never used.

Code walkthroughs and code inspections are considered as static analysis methods but static program analysis tool is used to designate automated analysis tools. Hence, a compiler can be considered as a static program analysis tool.

2. Dynamic Program Analysis Tools

Dynamic Program Analysis Tool is such type of program analysis tool that require the program to be executed and its actual behavior to be observed. A dynamic program analyzer basically implements the code. It adds additional statements in the source code to collect the traces of program execution. When the code is executed, it allows us to observe the behavior of the software for different test cases. Once the software is tested and its behavior is observed, the dynamic program analysis tool performs a post execution analysis and produces reports which describe the structural coverage that has been achieved by the complete testing process for the program.

For example, the post execution dynamic analysis report may provide data on extent statement, branch and path coverage achieved. The results of dynamic program analysis tools are in the form of a histogram or a pie chart. It describes the structural coverage obtained for different modules of the program. The output of a dynamic program analysis tool can be stored and printed easily and provides evidence that complete testing has been done. The result of dynamic analysis is the extent of testing performed as white box testing. If the testing result is not satisfactory then more test cases are designed and added to the test scenario. Also dynamic analysis helps in elimination of redundant test cases.