QGC Static Analyzers

Static analysis tools for QGroundControl C++ code.

Compiler analysis records per-file durations as each file completes in *-progress.jsonl, so interrupted CI jobs retain partial timing evidence. The final *-timings.json includes elapsed time, accumulated worker time, and shard coverage. PR clang-tidy runs split selected translation units across four jobs, after header dependency expansion. Each unit is checked once; Clazy and manual runs use one job. Only the first shard saves shared build caches.

Per-check profiling adds substantial overhead and is disabled by default. Use python tools/analyze.py --tool clang-tidy --profile-checks src/LogManager/LogEntryTableModel.cc or the manual workflow's profile_checks input with a narrow path and analyze_all: false. Profiled runs print the most expensive checks and archive the original profiles. Check costs are summed across translation units and overlap with parallel work. Ordinary runs retain per-file timing and progress without instrumenting individual checks. Changing .clang-tidy requires a full clang-tidy scan but does not independently force a full Clazy scan.

Vehicle Null-Check Analyzer

Detects unsafe patterns where activeVehicle() or getParameter() results are used without null checks.

Usage

# Analyze specific files
python3 tools/analyzers/vehicle_null_check.py src/Vehicle/*.cc

# Analyze directory recursively
python3 tools/analyzers/vehicle_null_check.py src/

# JSON output for CI/editor integration
python3 tools/analyzers/vehicle_null_check.py --json src/

# Show help
python3 tools/analyzers/vehicle_null_check.py --help

Detected Patterns

Pattern	Risk	Example
unsafe_active_vehicle_direct	High	activeVehicle()->method()
unsafe_active_vehicle_use	High	Variable used after activeVehicle() without check
unsafe_get_parameter	Medium	getParameter(...)->rawValue()

Example Output

src/Example.cc:42:15: warning: unsafe_active_vehicle_direct
  activeVehicle()->parameterManager()->getParameter(...);
  Suggestion: Add null check before using activeVehicle():
    Vehicle *vehicle = MultiVehicleManager::instance()->activeVehicle();
    if (!vehicle) return;

JSON Output Format

[
  {
    "file": "src/Example.cc",
    "line": 42,
    "column": 15,
    "pattern": "unsafe_active_vehicle_direct",
    "code": "activeVehicle()->parameterManager()->...",
    "suggestion": "Add null check before using activeVehicle():..."
  }
]

Pre-commit Integration

Already configured in .pre-commit-config.yaml. Runs automatically on C++ files.

# Run manually on all files
pre-commit run vehicle-null-check --all-files

Suppressing False Positives

The analyzer looks back 10 lines for null checks. If you have a valid null check that isn't detected, restructure your code to have the check closer to the usage, or add a comment explaining why it's safe.

// Safe: null check is visible to analyzer
Vehicle *vehicle = MultiVehicleManager::instance()->activeVehicle();
if (!vehicle) {
    return;
}
vehicle->doSomething();  // OK - analyzer sees the check above

Shared Utilities

The analyzers use shared patterns from tools/common/:

• patterns.py - Regex patterns for QGC code constructs
• file_traversal.py - File discovery with proper filtering

Adding New Analyzers

1. Create new Python script in tools/analyzers/
2. Import shared patterns from tools.common.patterns
3. Use find_cpp_files() from tools.common.file_traversal
4. Support --json output for editor integration
5. Add to .pre-commit-config.yaml if appropriate