This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Perl Buzz by Andy Lester. Original Post: Coverity scans the Parrot project again Feed Title: Perlbuzz Feed URL: http://perlbuzz.com/atom.xml Feed Description: What's happening in the world of Perl programming, including Perl 5, Perl 6, the CPAN and Parrot? Latest Perl Buzz Posts Latest Perl Buzz Posts by Andy Lester Latest Posts From Perlbuzz

Back in 2007, I worked with David Maxwell of Coverity to get Parrot scanned by Coverity Prevent. Coverity Prevent is a static C analysis tool that looks for potential bugs in a codebase, and it's far more comprehensive than built-in GCC warnings or splint. It's also expensive, licensed per-seat, but Coverity offers a service to open source projects to analyze their source code.

I worked on the Coverity results for a while, fixing bugs and removing dead code here and there, but for whatever reason turned my attention elsewhere.

Last week, I ran into David during OSCON, and it sparked my memory of how useful the Coverity tool was. It had been so long since I'd checked, I couldn't even remember my login credentials. It didn't matter, as it turns out the scanner hadn't been running, and in fact was still pointing at the old Parrot Subversion repository. Now, he's got things going again, and I have a raft of new potential bugs to investigate and fix.

I want to thank Coverity for providing this service to the Perl and Parrot communities. There are plenty of ways to support open source without having to shell out cash. This is a very useful one indeed.