Sparse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For a definition of the word "sparse", see the Wiktionary entry sparse.
This article is about a software tool called sparse. For sparse in numerical analysis, see sparse matrix.
| Sparse | |
|---|---|
| Design by | Linus Torvalds |
| Developed by | Josh Triplett |
| Initial release | 2003 |
| Latest release | 0.4.1 / November 13, 2007 |
| OS | Linux |
| Genre | Static code analysis |
| License | Open Software License |
| Website | Sparse web page |
In computer science, Sparse is a tool designed to find possible coding faults in the Linux kernel. This static analysis tool differed from other such tools in that it was initially designed to flag constructs that were only likely to be of interest to kernel developers (e.g., mixing pointers to user address space and pointers to kernel address space)
Sparse contains built-in checks for known problematic and a set of annotations designed to convey semantic information about types, such as what address space pointers point to, or what locks a function acquires or releases.
Linus Torvalds started writing Sparse in 2003 and since 2006 it has been maintained by Josh Triplett. Sparse is released under the Open Software License, version 1.1.
