DATASHEET

MISRA C:2004 Rule Enforcement

(MISRA C:2004 plus Technical Corrigendum 1)

ENFORCEMENT HELIX QAC 2023.4

  

Total

a

Total Number of Rules

142

b

Total Number of ‘Not Statically Enforceable’ Rules (Assisted/Unassisted)

9

c

Total Number of Enforceable Rules (a-b)

133

d

Total Number of Enforced Rules

132

e

Total Number of Unenforced Rules

1

f

Enforce Rules Percentage (d/c)

99%

g

Unenforced Rules Percentage (e/c)

1%

Rule

Rule Description

Category

Enforced

1.1

All code shall conform to ISO/IEC 9899:1990 C programming language, ISO 9899, amended and corrected by ISO/IEC 9899/COR1:1995,ISO/IEC 9899/AMD1:1995, and ISO/IEC 9899/COR2: 1996192

Required

Yes

1.2

No reliance shall be placed on undefined or unspecified behaviour.

Required

Yes

1.3

Multiple compilers and/or languages shall only be used if there is a common defined interface standard for object code to which the languages/compilers/assemblers conform.

Required

NSE

1.4

The compiler/linker shall be checked to ensure that 31 character significance and case sensitivity are supported for external identifiers.

Required

NSE

1.5

Floating-point implementations should comply with a defined floating-point standard.

Advisory

NSE

2.1

Assembly language shall be encapsulated and isolated.

Required

Yes

2.2

Source code shall only use C-style comments.

Required

Yes

2.3

The character sequence /* shall not be used within a comment.

Required

Yes

2.4

Sections of code should not be 'commented out'.

Advisory

NSE

3.1

All usage of implementation-defined behaviour shall be documented.

Required

Yes

3.2

The character set and the corresponding encoding shall be documented.

Required

NSE

3.3

The implementation of integer division in the chosen compiler should be determined, documented and taken into account.

Advisory

NSE

3.4

All uses of the #pragma directive shall be documented and explained.

Required

Yes

3.5

If it is being relied upon, the implementation-defined behaviour and packing of bitfields shall be documented.

Required

NSE

3.6

All libraries used in production code shall be written to comply with the provisions of this document, and shall have been subject to appropriate validation.

Required

NSE

4.1

Only those escape sequences that are defined in the ISO C standard shall be used.

Required

Yes

4.2

Trigraphs shall not be used.

Required

Yes

5.1

Identifiers (internal and external) shall not rely on the significance of more than 31 characters.

Required

Yes

5.2

Identifiers in an inner scope shall not use the same name as an identifier in an outer scope, and therefore hide that identifier.

Required

Yes

5.3

A typedef name shall be a unique identifier.

Required

Yes

5.4

A tag name shall be a unique identifier.

Required

Yes

5.5

No object or function identifier with static storage duration should be reused.

Advisory

Yes

5.6

No identifier in one name space should have the same spelling as an identifier in another name space, with the exception of structure member and union member names.

Advisory

Yes

5.7

No identifier name should be reused.

Advisory

No

6.1

The plain char type shall be used only for the storage and use of character values.

Required

Yes

6.2

Signed and unsigned char type shall be used only for the storage and use of numeric values.

Required

Yes

6.3

Typedefs that indicate size and signedness should be used in place of the basic numerical types.

Advisory

Yes

6.4

Bit fields shall only be defined to be of type unsigned int or signed int.

Required

Yes

6.5

Bit fields of signed type shall be at least 2 bits long.

Required

Yes

7.1

Octal constants (other than zero) and octal escape sequences shall not be used.

Required

Yes

8.1

Functions shall have prototype declarations and the prototype shall be visible at both the function definition and call.

Required

Yes

8.2

Whenever an object or function is declared or defined, its type shall be explicitly stated.

Required

Yes

8.3

For each function parameter the type given in the declaration and definition shall be identical, and the return types shall also be identical.

Required

Yes

8.4

If objects or functions are declared more than once their types shall be compatible.

Required

Yes

8.5

There shall be no definitions of objects or functions in a header file.

Required

Yes

8.6

Functions shall be declared at file scope.

Required

Yes

8.7

Objects shall be defined at block scope if they are only accessed from within a single function.

Required

Yes

8.8

An external object or function shall be declared in one and only one file.

Required

Yes

8.9

An identifier with external linkage shall have exactly one external definition.

Required

Yes

8.1

All declarations and definitions of objects or functions at file scope shall have internal linkage unless external linkage is required.

Required

Yes

8.11

The static storage class specifier shall be used in definitions and declarations of objects and functions that have internal linkage.

Required

Yes

8.12

When an array is declared with external linkage, its size shall be stated explicitly or defined implicitly by initialisation.

Required

Yes

9.1

All automatic variables shall have been assigned a value before being used.

Required

Yes

9.2

Braces shall be used to indicate and match the structure in the non-zero initialisation of arrays and structures.

Required

Yes

9.3

In an enumerator list, the '=' construct shall not be used to explicitly initialise members other than the first, unless all items are explicitly initialised.

Required

Yes

10.1

The value of an expression of integer type shall not be implicitly converted to a different underlying type if: a) it is not a conversion to a wider integer type of the same signedness, or b) expression is complex, or c) the expression is not constant and is a function argument, or d) the expression is not constant and is a return expression.

Required

Yes

10.2

The value of an expression of floating type shall not be implicitly converted to a different type if: a) it is not a conversion to a wider floating type, or b) the expression is complex, or c) the expression is a function argument, or d) the expression is a return expression.

Required

Yes

10.3

The value of a complex expression of integer type shall only be cast to a type of the same signedness that is no wider than the underlying type of the expression.

Required

Yes

10.4

The value of a complex expression of floating type shall only be cast to a floating type that is narrower or of the same size.

Required

Yes

10.5

If the bitwise operators ~ and << are applied to an operand of underlying type unsigned char or unsigned short, the result shall be immediately cast to the underlying type of the operand.

Required

Yes

10.6

A "U" suffix shall be applied to all constants of unsigned type.

Required

Yes

11.1

Conversions shall not be performed between a pointer to a function and any type other than an integral type.

Required

Yes

11.2

Conversions shall not be performed between a pointer to object and any type other than an integral type, another pointer to object type or a pointer to void.

Required

Yes

11.3

A cast should not be performed between a pointer type and an integral type.

Advisory

Yes

11.4

A cast should not be performed between a pointer to object type and a different pointer to object type.

Advisory

Yes

11.5

A cast shall not be performed that removes any const or volatile qualification from the type addressed by a pointer.

Required

Yes

12.1

Limited dependence should be placed on C's operator precedence rules in expressions.

Advisory

Yes

12.2

The value of an expression shall be the same under any order of evaluation that the standard permits.

Required

Yes

12.3

The sizeof operator shall not be used on expressions that contain side effects.

Required

Yes

12.4

The right hand operand of a logical && or || operator shall not contain side effects.

Required

Yes

12.5

The operands of a logical && or || shall be primary-expressions.

Required

Yes

12.6

The operands of logical operators (&&, || and !) should be effectively Boolean. Expressions that are effectively Boolean should not be used as operands to operators other than (&&, ||, !, =, ==, != and ?:).

Advisory

Yes

12.7

Bitwise operators shall not be applied to operands whose underlying type is signed.

Required

Yes

12.8

The right hand operand of a shift operator shall lie between zero and one less than the width in bits of the underlying type of the left hand operand.

Required

Yes

12.9

The unary minus operator shall not be applied to an expression whose underlying type is unsigned.

Required

Yes

12.1

The comma operator shall not be used.

Required

Yes

12.11

Evaluation of constant unsigned integer expressions should not lead to wrap-around.

Advisory

Yes

12.12

The underlying bit representations of floating-point values shall not be used.

Required

Yes

12.13

The increment (++) and decrement (--) operators should not be mixed with other operators in an expression.

Advisory

Yes

13.1

Assignment operators shall not be used in expressions that yield a Boolean value.

Required

Yes

13.2

Tests of a value against zero should be made explicit, unless the operand is effectively Boolean.

Advisory

Yes

13.3

Floating-point expressions shall not be tested for equality or inequality.

Required

Yes

13.4

The controlling expression of a for statement shall not contain any objects of floating type.

Required

Yes

13.5

The three expressions of a for statement shall be concerned only with loop control.

Required

Yes

13.6

Numeric variables being used within a for loop for iteration counting shall not be modified in the body of the loop.

Required

Yes

13.7

Boolean operations whose results are invariant shall not be permitted.

Required

Yes

14.1

There shall be no unreachable code.

Required

Yes

14.2

All non-null statements shall either (i) have at least one side effect however executed, or (ii) cause control flow to change.

Required

Yes

14.3

Before preprocessing, a null statement shall only occur on a line by itself; it may be followed by a comment provided that the first character following the null statement is a white-space character.

Required

Yes

14.4

The goto statement shall not be used.

Required

Yes

14.5

The continue statement shall not be used.

Required

Yes

14.6

For any iteration statement there shall be at most one break statement used for loop termination.

Required

Yes

14.7

A function shall have a single point of exit at the end of the function.

Required

Yes

14.8

The statement forming the body of a switch, while, do ... while or for statement shall be a compound statement.

Required

Yes

14.9

An if (expression) construct shall be followed by a compound statement. The else keyword shall be followed by either a compound statement, or another if statement.

Required

Yes

14.1

All if ... else if constructs shall be terminated with an else clause.

Required

Yes

15

The MISRA C switch syntax shall be used.

Required

Yes

15.1

A switch label shall only be used when the most closely-enclosing compound statement is the body of a switch statement.

Required

Yes

15.2

An unconditional break statement shall terminate every non-empty switch clause.

Required

Yes

15.3

The final clause of a switch statement shall be the default clause.

Required

Yes

15.4

A switch expression shall not represent a value that is effectively Boolean.

Required

Yes

15.5

Every switch statement shall have at least one case clause.

Required

Yes

16.1

Functions shall not be defined with a variable number of arguments.

Required

Yes

16.2

Functions shall not call themselves, either directly or indirectly.

Required

Yes

16.3

Identifiers shall be given for all of the parameters in a function prototype declaration.

Required

Yes

16.4

The identifiers used in the declaration and definition of a function shall be identical.

Required

Yes

16.5

Functions with no parameters shall be declared and defined with the parameter list void.

Required

Yes

16.6

The number of arguments passed to a function shall match the number of parameters.

Required

Yes

16.7

A pointer parameter in a function prototype should be declared as pointer to const if the pointer is not used to modify the addressed object.

Advisory

Yes

16.8

All exit paths from a function with non-void return type shall have an explicit return statement with an expression.

Required

Yes

16.9

A function identifier shall only be used with either a preceding &, or with a parenthesised parameter list, which may be empty.

Required

Yes

16.1

If a function returns error information, then that error information shall be tested.

Required

Yes

17.1

Pointer arithmetic shall only be applied to pointers that address an array or array element.

Required

Yes

17.2

Pointer subtraction shall only be applied to pointers that address elements of the same array.

Required

Yes

17.3

>, >=, <, <= shall not be applied to pointer types except where they point to the same array.

Required

Yes

17.4

Array indexing shall be the only allowed form of pointer arithmetic.

Required

Yes

17.5

The declaration of objects should contain no more than 2 levels of pointer indirection.

Advisory

Yes

17.6

The address of an object with automatic storage shall not be assigned to another object that may persist after the first object has ceased to exist.

Required

Yes

18.1

All structure and union types shall be complete at the end of a translation unit.

Required

Yes

18.2

An object shall not be assigned to an overlapping object.

Required

Yes

18.3

An area of memory shall not be reused for unrelated purposes.

Required

NSE

18.4

Unions shall not be used.

Required

Yes

19.1

#include statements in a file should only be preceded by other preprocessor directives or comments.

Advisory

Yes

19.2

Non-standard characters should not occur in header file names in #include directives.

Advisory

Yes

19.3

The #include directive shall be followed by either a  or "filename" sequence.

Required

Yes

19.4

C macros shall only expand to a braced initialiser, a constant, a string literal, a parenthesised expression, a type qualifier, a storage class specifier, or a do-while-zero construct.

Required

Yes

19.5

Macros shall not be #define'd or #undef'd within a block.

Required

Yes

19.6

#undef shall not be used.

Required

Yes

19.7

A function should be used in preference to a function-like macro.

Advisory

Yes

19.8

A function-like macro shall not be invoked without all of its arguments.

Required

Yes

19.9

Arguments to a function-like macro shall not contain tokens that look like preprocessing directives.

Required

Yes

19.1

In the definition of a function-like macro each instance of a parameter shall be enclosed in parentheses unless it is used as the operand of # or ##.

Required

Yes

19.11

All macro identifiers in preprocessor directives shall be defined before use, except in #ifdef and #ifndef preprocessor directives and the defined() operator.

Required

Yes

19.12

There shall be at most one occurrence of the # or ## preprocessor operators in a single macro definition.

Required

Yes

19.13

The # and ## preprocessor operators should not be used.

Advisory

Yes

19.14

The defined preprocessor operator shall only be used in one of the two standard forms.

Required

Yes

19.15

Precautions shall be taken in order to prevent the contents of a header file being included twice.

Required

Yes

19.16

Preprocessing directives shall be syntactically meaningful even when excluded by the preprocessor.

Required

Yes

19.17

All #else, #elif and #endif preprocessor directives shall reside in the same file as the #if or #ifdef directive to which they are related.

Required

Yes

20.1

Reserved identifiers, macros and functions in the standard library, shall not be defined, redefined or undefined.

Required

Yes

20.2

The names of standard library macros, objects and functions shall not be reused.

Required

Yes

20.3

The validity of values passed to library functions shall be checked.

Required

Yes

20.4

Dynamic heap memory allocation shall not be used.

Required

Yes

20.5

The error indicator errno shall not be used.

Required

Yes

20.6

The macro offsetof, in library , shall not be used.

Required

Yes

20.7

The setjmp macro and the longjmp function shall not be used.

Required

Yes

20.8

The signal handling facilities of  shall not be used.

Required

Yes

20.9

The input/output library  shall not be used in production code.

Required

Yes

20.1

The library functions atof, atoi and atol from library  shall not be used.

Required

Yes

20.11

The library functions abort, exit, getenv and system from library  shall not be used.

Required

Yes

20.12

The time handling functions of library 

Required

Yes

21.1

Minimisation of run-time failures shall be ensured by the use of at least one of (a) static analysis tools/techniques; (b) dynamic analysis tools/techniques; (c) explicit coding of checks to handle run-time faults.

Required

Yes