Analyzing without a project

You can analyze code quickly without creating a project file. This is useful to try Cppcheck, or to look at a few files. For regular use a project is better: with a properly configured project Cppcheck knows your include paths, defines and libraries, and the analysis is more accurate. You also get features that need a project, such as saved suppressions, tags and the build dir. See Project files.

If a project is open, close it first with File > Close Project File. The GUI does not let you analyze files or folders while a project is open.

Analyzing files

Select Analyze > Files... (Ctrl+F) and select one or more source files. The analysis starts at once.

In the same file dialog you can also select a project of your build system. Cppcheck then analyzes the files of that project with its include paths and defines, just as if you had imported it in a project file:

• a compile database (compile_commands.json),
• a Visual Studio solution (*.sln, *.slnx) or project (*.vcxproj). For a solution, a dialog asks which configuration (for example Debug|x64) to analyze,
• a Borland C++ Builder 6 project (*.bpr).

Analyzing a directory

Select Analyze > Directory... (Ctrl+D) and select a folder. Cppcheck analyzes all source files in the folder and its subfolders. Files with these extensions are analyzed: .c, .cpp, .cxx, .cc, .c++, .tpp, .txx, .ipp and .ixx.

Header files are not analyzed on their own. The code in a header is analyzed when a source file includes it, as long as Cppcheck can find the header.

If the folder contains a Cppcheck project file, the GUI asks if you want to open that project instead. If there are several project files, it asks if you want to continue without them.

Which settings are used

Without a project, the analysis uses:

• the preferences: number of threads, Force checking all #ifdef configurations, Enable inline suppressions, Check for inconclusive errors also,
• the settings in the Analyze menu: the C and C++ standard, the language (auto-detect, enforce C or enforce C++) and the platform.

The Analyze menu settings are remembered when you close the GUI.

Language standard

Analyze > C standard and Analyze > C++ standard select the language version. It affects how some code is parsed and which checks apply. For example, some functions are deprecated in newer standards, and some library functions only exist in newer standards.

Language

With Auto-detect language the file extension decides if a file is C or C++. Choose Enforce C or Enforce C++ to treat all files as one language.

Platform

The platform decides the size of the basic types (short, int, long, pointers, wchar_t and so on) and whether char is signed. Choose the platform the code will run on:

• Native: the computer you run Cppcheck on.
• Unix 32-bit / Unix 64-bit: Linux, BSD, macOS and similar on 32-bit or 64-bit processors.
• Windows 32-bit ANSI / Windows 32-bit Unicode: 32-bit Windows. In the ANSI variant the Windows "T" macros and types such as TCHAR and _tcscpy mean the char versions; in the Unicode variant they mean the wchar_t versions.
• Windows 64-bit: 64-bit Windows, with Unicode.

Limitations

Without a project:

• There are no include paths, so Cppcheck may not find your own headers. You will see information messages about missing includes, and some warnings can be missing because types and macros are unknown.
• Suppressions made with the context menu can not be saved. The warnings disappear from the list but are reported again in the next analysis. Use inline suppressions in the code instead, or create a project. See Hiding and suppressing warnings.
• Warnings can not be tagged.
• There is no build dir. Every analysis analyzes all files, the Since date column is not available, and checks that need whole program analysis, such as unused functions, are not run.
• Addons and coding standards (Misra, Cert, ...) can not be used.

Analyzing again

After you change the code, use Analyze > Reanalyze modified files (Ctrl+R) to analyze the files that changed, or Reanalyze all files to analyze everything again.

Previous: The main window | Next: Project files