The webinar, led by coding standards expert Paul Burden, introduces MISRA C:2012, highlighting its differences from previous versions, including an increase in guidelines to 159 and new requirements for legacy code compliance. Key topics include guideline classification into advisory, required, and mandatory categories, as well as the importance of compliance enforceability and decidability for coding standards in various sectors such as automotive and aerospace. The session will last approximately 50 minutes, followed by a 10-minute Q&A segment.

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An Introduction to MISRA C:2012
Paul Burden
Webinar will start shortly

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Welcome
• A warm welcome to all our visitors
• The Webinar will last for approx 50 minutes
• We will take 10 minutes of questions at the end

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GoToWebinar Attendee Interface

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Paul Burden
• Technical Consultant working for
PRQA
• Expert in coding standards
enforcement
• Product Manager for PRQA’s
leading static analysis tool QA·C
• Prominent member of the MISRA C
Working Group since its formation
more than 10 years ago.

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Agenda
1. An Introduction to MISRA C
2. The Changes in MISRA C:2012
3. Guideline Classification
4. MISRA C Compliance

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MISRA C
MISRA C:1998
• Derived from PRQA standards developed for Ford and Rover
• Developed in UK for automotive applications
MISRA C:2004
• Amended and extended
• Supplemented with an Exemplar suite
MISRA C:2012
• A committee of 10 representing many years of experience
• 4 years of effort
• Released 18th March 2013
• A further step forward …

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Coding standard adoption
VDC Research
White Paper* April 2011:
“Re-evaluation of Development and Testing Practices April 2011”
Available at:
www.programmingresearch.com/whitepapers
Data obtained from 600 respondents
in Embedded and Enterprise/IT
software and systems development.
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
Coding Standard Adoption
by % of Respondents

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MISRA C
• Automotive
• Aerospace
• Defence
• Medical
• Nuclear power
• Railways
• Consumer electronics
• Process control
• etc.
MISRA C is now the most widely used coding
standard for the C language - worldwide

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Agenda
1. An Introduction to MISRA C
2. The Changes in MISRA C:2012
3. Guideline Classification
4. MISRA C Compliance

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The Changes in MISRA C:2012
MISRA C:2012 compared to MISRA C:2004
• It's bigger
– a few more rules (159 instead of 142 )
– and the content is better
• Many guidelines are unchanged
– they may be reworded and better specified
– guideline/rule numbering has changed
• Legacy code may not be compliant
– there are new requirements – not many
– but some restrictions have been removed

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C language support
ISO:C90
• Well supported by compilers and tools
• The dangers are well understood
• Limitations – e.g. absence of Boolean type
ISO:C99
• More features, e.g. _Bool and inline functions
• More dangers, e.g. additional undefined behaviour
• Most compilers do not support all features of C99
ISO:C11
• Still relatively new
• Very limited tool support
MISRA C:1998
MISRA C:2004
MISRA C:2012
MISRA C:2012

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Guideline specification
An expanded
explanation of the
requirement
Why the guideline
is necessary
More extensive
code examples
Headline text
clarification
Exceptions

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Terminology
MISRA terminology has changed
These terms were
loosely defined and
have been replaced
The new terms are fully
defined and used to
describe expressions
of any arithmetic type
MISRA C:2004 MISRA C:2012
underlying type essential type
complex expression composite expression
effectively Boolean essentially Boolean

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Agenda
1. An Introduction to MISRA C
2. The Changes in MISRA C:2012
3. Guideline Classification
4. MISRA C Compliance

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Guideline classification
Category
• Advisory
• Required
• Mandatory Decidability
• Decidable
• Undecidable
Language
• C90
• C99
• C90, C99
Guideline Type
• Directive
• Rule Analysis Scope
• Single Translation Unit
• System

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Rules and Directives
Rules
– Have well defined requirements
– Are statically enforceable (subject to certain limitations)
Directives
– May be loosely defined – allowing alternative interpretations
– May address "process" or "documentation" requirements
There are now 2 types of guideline:

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Rules and Directives - examples
Rules
Rule 8.5 An external object or function shall be declared once in
one and only one file
Rule 11.3 A cast shall not be performed between a pointer to object
type and a different pointer to object type
Dir 3.1 All code shall be traceable to documented requirements
Dir 4.3 Assembly language shall be encapsulated and isolated
Directives

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Guideline categories
• Advisory guidelines
– These are recommendations
– Non-compliance is permitted at the user's discretion
– Non-compliance should be documented
– Formal deviations are not required
• Required guidelines
– Non-compliance must be supported by a formal "deviation"
• Mandatory guidelines
– Must always be obeyed
– Compliance is always required
Mandatory guidelines
were not a feature of
previous versions of
MISRA C
There are now 3 guideline categories:

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Rule decidability
A rule is decidable if it is always possible, in any program,
for a tool to determine whether code is compliant. Otherwise
the rule is undecidable
Rules are either "decidable" or "undecidable"
Rule 12.4 Evaluation of constant expressions should not lead to
unsigned integer wrap-around
Decidable …
Undecidable …
Rule 13.5 The right hand operand of a logical && or || operator shall not
contain persistent side effects

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Analysis scope
There are 2 types of "analysis scope"
Single Translation Unit Rules
System Rules
Rule 8.2 Function types shall be in prototype form with named parameters
Rule 16.4 Every switch statement shall have a default label
Rule 8.7 Functions and objects should not be defined with external
linkage if they are referenced in only one translation unit
Rule 13.5 The right hand operand of a logical && or || operator shall not
contain persistent side efects

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Guideline Classification Summary
CLASSIFICATION SUMMARY
DIRECTIVES
(16)
RULES
(143)
CATEGORY Advisory 7 32
Required 9 101
Mandatory 0 10
LANGUAGE C90 0 2
C99 0 11
C90 or C99 16 130
DECIDABILITY Decidable - 117
Undecidable - 26
ANALYSIS SCOPE Single Translation Unit - 104
System - 39
Some rules are now classified
as "mandatory"
Some rules are only relevant
for a specific language version
Some rules cannot be statically
enforced with certainty
Rules that can be enforced
within a single translation unit
are decidable

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Agenda
1. An Introduction to MISRA C
2. The Changes in MISRA C:2012
3. Guideline Classification
4. MISRA C Compliance

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MISRA C Compliance
• Enforceability
• Decidability
• Deviations
What do we mean by "MISRA Compliant Code" ?

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Enforceability
143
16
"The vision for the third edition of MISRA C is therefore to:
…
Increase the number of guidelines that can be processed by static analysis tools"
…
MISRA C:2012 Chapter 1 – The Vision
Rules - can be
automatically
enforced
Directives – tools can
sometimes assist with
enforcement

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Enforceability
Independent Research performed by
TERA-Labs, a new research division of
the Karel de Grote university college in
Antwerp, Belgium.
• Test code was written for 11 key rules
in MISRA C:2004 - selected by a panel
of industrial partners
• The test code was analysed using a
number of analysis tools claiming to
enforce compliancy with MISRA C
• Two tool attributes were examined
– Effectiveness in identifying rule violations
– Incidence of false positive messages
No False
Positives
Many False
Positives
All
violations
reported
No
violations
reported
GOOD
BAD
"The ability to detect the maximum number of violations possible, while minimizing the number of
false positive messages, is therefore an important factor in choosing a tool."
MISRA C:2012 Chapter 3.2 Analysis Tools

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Tool Enforcement
Tool
XYZ
The author of the TERA-Labs
report observed:
“On paper all the selected tools
claimed to provide comprehensive
MISRA C compliance checking
– but the reality was different.”
www.programmingresearch.com/resources/white-papers

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MISRA C Compliance
• Enforceability
• Decidability
• Deviations

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Decidability
"In order to use MISRA C, it is necessary to develop and document …
• A compliance matrix, showing how compliance with each MISRA C guideline will be checked"
MISRA C:2012 Chapter 5.2.1 – Process activities required by MISRA C
"Where a guideline cannot be completely checked by a tool, then a manual review will be required."
MISRA C:2012 Chapter 5.3 – Compliance
117
26
16
MISRA C:2012 Guidelines
Decidable Rules
Undecidable Rules
Directives

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MISRA C Compliance
• Enforceability
• Decidability
• Deviations
What do we mean by "MISRA Compliant Code" ?

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Deviations
"In order to use MISRA C, it is necessary to develop and document …
• A deviation process by which justifiable non-compliances can be authorized and recorded "
MISRA C:2012 Chapter 5.2.1 – Process activities required by MISRA C
" It is important that such deviations are properly recorded and authorized."
MISRA C:2012 Chapter 5.4 – Deviation procedure
Deviations are often necessary …
… but the process can also be abused
MISRA C ADC: Approved deviation compliance for MISRA C:2004
ISBN 978-906400-09-5 (PDF), February 2013.
Freely downloadable from www.misra.org.uk

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Deviation Management
• Deviation support
• Documentation
• Collaborative code review
• Baselining

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Agenda
In Conclusion …

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In conclusion …
• Effective, accurate, automatic enforcement
MISRA C
2012
QA
C
• Disciplined compliance and deviation management
• Enforceable, decidable, well-specified coding rules

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Do you have any questions?

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MISRA C:2012 microsite
www.programmingresearch.com/mc3
• Download our MISRA C:2012 whitepaper
• Share our 1-page MISRA C:2012 summary
• Watch our videos about coding standards
• Access the MISRA webstore

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Do you have any questions?

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Thank you
Thank you for tuning in and giving an hour of your valuable time !
We will email the video link of this presentation and a summary of
the Q&A shortly.
Email us to ask any questions or for any follow-up points of interest.
Paul Burden
paul_burden@programmingresearch.com
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