Communications of the ACM
Static Analysis
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The relationship between source code, computers, and people is complex. Though most code exists to be run on a computer, its purpose is not limited to that. It is also intended to be read and understood. The complexity of modern software development stands in opposition to the effort to understand code: Software that cannot be understood cannot be easily maintained or improved, and many empirical studies indicate a correlation between a given codebase's complexity and its rate of defects.3 It's difficult to understand a codebase of any significant size, and programmers therefore need and deserve every useful tool and technique to help them understand complex codebases.
One such category of tool, static program analysis, consists of programs or algorithms designed to extract facts from another program's source code, without executing the program in question and usually as a distinct stage in the day-to-day software development process. Software developers who use tools for static program analysis (usually referred to simply as static analysis) then have an opportunity to use the facts yielded by the analysis to further understand, evaluate, and modify the associated codebase.
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