Coccinelle: Finding bugs in the Linux Kernel
summary
Coccinelle is a program-matching and transformation tool that uses SmPL semantic patch language to auto-find and auto-fix kernel bugs, producing about 4000+ kernel patches and shipping 40+ scripts with Linux. It matches code fragments, uses meta-variables, disjunctions and “dot dot dot” wildcards, runs as spatch in patch/context/report modes, and finds real issues like copy_to_user under spinlocks, missing bit-macro refactors and inter-file race patterns while integrating with Python/OCaml for reports and batch fixes.
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chapters (14)
- 0:00Start
- 5:08Code Maintenance Issues
- 8:02Some useless code
- 8:24Some serious stuff
- 9:53Goals of the tool Coccinelle
- 11:25Semantic Patch Language (SmPL)
- 12:02Example 1: Using BIT macro
- 15:14Example 2: Compressing the lines
- 16:07Transformation specification
- 16:51Spatch
- 17:25Coccicheck
- 17:54Modes for the Coccinelle script
- 19:11Some other notable features
- 22:36Useful links
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