NOTE: This repository was recently moved from https://github.com/danmar/cppcheck to https://github.com/cppcheck-opensource/cppcheck. Please make sure to update all your references to it accordingly.

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The original name of this program was "C++check", but it was later changed to "Cppcheck".

Despite the name, Cppcheck is designed for both C and C++.

A manual is available online.

Cppcheck is a hobby project with limited resources. You can help us by donating CPU (1 core, which is the default, or as many as you like. Use the -j flag to use more cores). It is simple:

1. Download (and extract) Cppcheck source code.

2. Run (Linux/MacOS example):

   cd cppcheck/
   python3 -m venv .venv
   source .venv/bin/activate
   
   pip install -r tools/donate-cpu-requirements.txt
   ./tools/donate-cpu.py

The script will analyse Debian source code and upload the results to a Cppcheck server. We need these results both to improve Cppcheck and to detect regressions.

You can stop the script whenever you like with Ctrl+C.

Cppcheck requires a C++ compiler with (partial) C++11 support. Minimum required versions are GCC 5.1 / Clang 3.5 / AppleClang 6.0 / Visual Studio 2015.

To build the GUI application, you need to use the CMake build system.

When building the command line tool, PCRE is optional. It is used if you build with rules.

There are multiple compilation choices:

• CMake - cross platform build tool
• (Windows) Visual Studio
• (Windows) Qt Creator + MinGW
• GNU compilers - via make or directly

The minimum required Python version is 3.7.

The minimum required version is CMake 3.22.

Example, compiling Cppcheck with cmake:

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build

If you want to compile the GUI you can use the flag. -DBUILD_GUI=ON

For rules support (requires pcre) use the flag. -DHAVE_RULES=ON

For release builds it is recommended that you use: -DUSE_MATCHCOMPILER=ON

For building the tests use the flag. -DBUILD_TESTING=ON

Using CMake you can generate project files for Visual Studio, XCode, etc.

For single-configuration generators (like "Unix Makefiles") you can generate and build a specific configuration (e.g. "RelWithDebInfo") using:

cmake -S . -B build_RelWithDebInfo -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo ..
cmake --build build_RelWithDebInfo --config RelWithDebInfo

For multi-configuration generators (like "Visual Studio 17 2022") the same is achieved using:

cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build --config RelWithDebInfo

Use the cppcheck.sln file. The file is configured for Visual Studio 2019, but the platform toolset can be changed easily to older or newer versions. The solution contains platform targets for both x86 and x64.

To compile with rules, select "Release-PCRE" or "Debug-PCRE" configuration. pcre.lib (pcre64.lib for x64 builds) and pcre.h are expected to be in /externals then. A current version of PCRE for Visual Studio can be obtained using vcpkg.

If you do not wish to use the Visual Studio IDE, you can compile Cppcheck from the command line the following command.

msbuild cppcheck.sln

Cppcheck Official is an extension officially supported by the cppcheck team allowing you to easily use cppcheck in VS Code. You can find it in VS Code Marketplace through the extension tab in your IDE. For instructions on how to set it up and use it, see the readme on the github page: https://github.com/cppchecksolutions/vscode-cppcheck-official

The PCRE dll is needed to build the CLI. It can be downloaded here: http://software-download.name/pcre-library-windows/

Simple, unoptimized build (no dependencies):

make

You can use CXXOPTS, CPPOPTS and LDOPTS to append to the existing CXXFLAGS, CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS instead of overriding them.

The recommended release build is:

make MATCHCOMPILER=yes FILESDIR=/usr/share/cppcheck HAVE_RULES=yes CXXOPTS="-O2" CPPOPTS="-DNDEBUG"

If you just want to build Cppcheck without dependencies then you can use this command:

g++ -o cppcheck -std=c++11 -Iexternals -Iexternals/simplecpp -Iexternals/tinyxml2 -Iexternals/picojson -Ilib -Ifrontend frontend/*.cpp cli/*.cpp lib/*.cpp externals/simplecpp/simplecpp.cpp externals/tinyxml2/tinyxml2.cpp

• MATCHCOMPILER=yes Several Token matching patterns are converted into more efficient C++ code at compile time (requires Python to be installed).

• FILESDIR=/usr/share/cppcheck Specifies the folder where Cppcheck files (addons, cfg, platform) are installed to.

• HAVE_RULES=yes Enables rules (requires PCRE to be installed).

• CXXOPTS="-O2" Enables most compiler optimizations.

• CPPOPTS="-DNDEBUG" Disables assertions.

• HAVE_BOOST=yes Enables usage of more efficient container from Boost (requires Boost to be installed).

mingw32-make

If you encounter the following error with MATCHCOMPILER=yes you need to specify your Python interpreter via PYTHON_INTERPRETER.

process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, which python3, ...) failed.
makefile:24: pipe: No error
process_begin: CreateProcess(NULL, which python, ...) failed.
makefile:27: pipe: No error
makefile:30: *** Did not find a Python interpreter.  Stop.

1. Create an empty project file / makefile.
2. Add all cpp files in the Cppcheck cli and lib folders to the project file / makefile.
3. Add all cpp files in the externals folders to the project file / makefile.
4. Compile.

sudo apt-get install mingw32
make CXX=i586-mingw32msvc-g++ LDFLAGS="-lshlwapi" RDYNAMIC=""
mv cppcheck cppcheck.exe

Besides building yourself on the platform of your choice there are also several ways to obtain pre-built packages.

Official packages are maintained by the Cppcheck team.

• (Windows) An official Windows installer is available via the official Cppcheck SourceForge page: https://cppcheck.sourceforge.io.
• (Windows) Official builds of the current development versions are available via the release-windows workflow. They are built nightly for the main branch and for each commit for release branches. As these are development versions please refrain from using these in production environments!
  • A portable package (i.e. does not require installation) is available as the portable artifact. This is still a work-in-progress - see https://trac.cppcheck.net/ticket/10771 for details.
  • An installer is available via the installer artifact.
• (Multi-Platform) A premium version with additional features provided by the original author of Cppcheck is available for purchase via https://www.cppcheck.com.

Third-party packages are not maintained by the Cppcheck team but their respective packagers.

Note: The following list is purely informational and listed in no particular order.

Note: Please always try to obtain the package from the primary official source of your operating system/distro first and make sure you are getting the latest released/tagged version (see https://github.com/cppcheck-opensource/cppcheck/tags). Some packages might not carry the latest patch version though.

Note: Some issues might be related to additional patches carried by the builds in these packages or by the packaging itself. Please try to verify the issue with an official build before reporting it upstream. Otherwise you might need toreport it to the respective maintainer of the package.

• (Windows / Outdated) A portable package is available via https://portableapps.com/apps/development/cppcheck-portable.
• (Windows / Outdated) A package is available via https://community.chocolatey.org/packages/cppcheck.
• (Windows / Outdated) A package is available via https://winget.run/pkg/Cppcheck/Cppcheck.
• (Windows) A package is available via https://scoop.sh/#/apps?q=cppcheck.
• (Linux/Unix) Many major distros offer Cppcheck packages via their integrated package managers (yum, apt, pacman, etc.). See https://pkgs.org/search/?q=cppcheck or https://repology.org/project/cppcheck for an overview.
• (Linux/Unix) Unless you are using a "rolling" distro, it is likely that they are not carrying the latest version. There are several external (mainly unsupported) repositories like AUR (ArchLinux), PPA (Ubuntu), EPEL (CentOS/Fedora) etc. which might provide up-to-date packages.
• (Linux/Unix / Outdated) The Canonical Snapcraft packages (https://snapcraft.io/cppcheck / https://snapcraft.io/cppcheckgui) are unmaintained and contain very old (development) versions. Please refrain from using them! See https://trac.cppcheck.net/ticket/11641 for more details.
• (MacOS) A package is available via Homebrew (brew). See https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/cppcheck.
• (MacOS) A package is available via https://ports.macports.org/port/cppcheck.
• (Multi-Platform) A package is available via https://anaconda.org/conda-forge/cppcheck.
• (Multi-Platform) A package is available via https://conan.io/center/recipes/cppcheck.
• Packages are also available from various download portals (mainly the Windows installer - sometimes re-packaged).

https://cppcheck.sourceforge.io/