Cppcheck

---

title: "Cppcheck" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["cross-platform-free-software", "free-software-programmed-in-c++", "free-software-testing-tools", "software-using-the-gnu-general-public-license", "static-program-analysis-tools"] description: "Static code analysis tool" topic_path: "technology/software-engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cppcheck" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Static code analysis tool ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

Field	Value
name	Cppcheck
caption	Cppcheck caption
author	Daniel Marjamäki
released
latest release version
latest release date
programming language	C++
operating_system	Cross-platform
language	English, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, German, Russian, Japanese, Serbian, Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Chinese
genre	Static code analysis
license	GNU General Public License
website
::

| name = Cppcheck | logo = | screenshot = | caption = Cppcheck caption | author = Daniel Marjamäki | developer = | released = | latest release version = | latest release date = | programming language = C++ | operating_system = Cross-platform | language = English, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, German, Russian, Japanese, Serbian, Spanish, French, Italian, Korean, Chinese | genre = Static code analysis | license = GNU General Public License | website =

Cppcheck is a static code analysis tool for the C and C++ programming languages. It is a versatile tool that can check non-standard code. The creator and lead developer is Daniel Marjamäki.

Cppcheck is Open-core software, with its open-source core code under the GNU General Public License.

Features

Cppcheck supports a wide variety of static checks that may not be covered by the compiler itself. These checks are static analysis checks that can be performed at a source code level. The program is directed towards static analysis checks that are rigorous, rather than heuristic in nature.

Some of the checks that are supported include:

• Automatic variable checking
• Bounds checking for array overruns
• Classes checking (e.g. unused functions, variable initialization and memory duplication)
• Usage of deprecated or superseded functions according to Open Group
• Exception safety checking, for example usage of memory allocation and destructor checks
• Memory leaks, e.g. due to lost scope without deallocation
• Resource leaks, e.g. due to forgetting to close a file handle
• Invalid usage of Standard Template Library functions and idioms
• Dead code elimination using unusedFunction option
• Miscellaneous stylistic and performance errors

As with many analysis programs, there are many unusual cases of programming idioms that may be acceptable in particular target cases or outside of the programmer's scope for source code correction. A study conducted in March 2009 identified several areas where false positives were found by Cppcheck, but did not specify the program version examined. Cppcheck has been identified for use in systems such as CERN’s 4DSOFT meta analysis package, for code verification in high energy particle detector readout devices, system monitoring software for radio telescopes as well as in error analysis of large projects, such as OpenOffice.org and the Debian archive.

Development

The project is actively under development and is actively maintained in different distributions. It has found valid bugs in a number of popular projects such as the Linux kernel and MPlayer.

Plugins

Plugins for the following IDEs or text editors exist

• CLion
• Code::Blocks - integrated.
• CodeLite - integrated.
• Eclipse
• Emacs
• gedit
• Hudson
• Jenkins
• Kate
• KDevelop
• Qt Creator
• Sublime Text
• Visual Studio
• Yasca

References

References

1. (December 2009). "A Survey of C and C++ Software Tools for Computational Science". Chilbolton, Daresbury, and Rutherford Appleton Laboratories.
2. "System Interfaces".
3. "Static Code Analysis For Embedded Systems".
4. (2010). "Dissemination and use of knowledge plan (Final)- EU Deliverable DNA2.11".
5. (2010). "Entwurf und Implementierung eines adaptiven, strahlentoleranten eingebetteten Systems am Beispiel eines Read-Out-Controllers (En: Development and implementation of an adaptive, radiation tolerant embedded system for operation of a Read-Out controller)".
6. (2010). "The Wettzell System Monitoring Concept and First Realizations". International VLBI Service for Geodesy & Astrometry.
7. "Hunting for vulnerabilities in large software : the OpenOffice suite".
8. "Introducing the "Debian's Automated Code Analysis" (DACA) project". LWN.net.
9. [https://github.com/danmar/cppcheck/ Cppcheck on Github]
10. [http://packages.qa.debian.org/c/cppcheck.html Cppcheck on Debian's Package Tracking System]
11. [http://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/devel/cppcheck/distinfo FreeBSD port]
12. "List of user reported bugs found by cppcheck".
13. "Found Bugs list". SourceForge.
14. "SourceForge.net: cppcheck". sourceforge.net.
15. "cppcheck plugin for CLion". plugins.jetbrains.com.
16. "Cppcheclipse". github.com.
17. "Flycheck". github.com.
18. "gedit Cppcheck plugin". github.com.
19. "Cppcheck Plugin". hudson-ci.org.
20. (20 May 2022). "Cppcheck Plugin". jenkins-ci.org.
21. Cullmann, Christoph. (2013-02-02). "Kate Project Plugin News – Code Analysis".
22. Funk, Kevin. (2016-12-06). "KDevelop's Cppcheck plugin merged into kdevelop.git, will be released with 5.1".
23. "Qt Creator Plug-in Gallery". Qt Wiki.
24. "Sublimelinter plugin". github.com.
25. "Cppcheck add-in". Visual Studio Marketplace.
26. VioletGiraffe. "Homepage cppcheck-vs-addin".
27. Srix. "Simple open source static analysis tool for Visual Studio".
28. Scovetta, Michael. "Yasca".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::