Static Code Analysis for iPhone Apps
14-Mar-2009 Filed in: iPhone
Starting with Habits
1.1, I started incorporating static analysis into my build. In my previous
experience with things like Lint and FXCop -- I
had found the signal to noise ratio to be too low
to be useful. It's hard to believe, but scan-build
is 100% signal -- every single issue it flagged
was legitimate and needed to be fixed. Now,
keeping Habits free from issues is easy, since I
only have to deal with one or two at a time.
There were a couple of times I thought it was leading me in the wrong direction, but it was right so often that I just trusted it, and it was right about those too. I had a particularly interesting case with a custom table cell, where I wasn't releasing properly, and causing a crash when I dealloced the window. Scan-build helped me make sure I found that before release.
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There were a couple of times I thought it was leading me in the wrong direction, but it was right so often that I just trusted it, and it was right about those too. I had a particularly interesting case with a custom table cell, where I wasn't releasing properly, and causing a crash when I dealloced the window. Scan-build helped me make sure I found that before release.
Get iPhone programming tips in your inbox with my Beginner iPhone Programming Tips newsletter.