# The cscout Command Manual Page

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS
MORE OPTIONS
EXAMPLE
SEE ALSO
AUTHOR

## NAME

cscout - C code analyzer and refactoring browser

## SYNOPSIS

cscout [-bcErv3] [-l log file] [-p port] [-m specification] [-o | -s db] [-H proxy host] [-P proxy host port] [-A username:password] file

## DESCRIPTION

CScout is a source code analyzer and refactoring browser for collections of C programs. It can process workspaces of multiple projects (we define a project as a collection of C source files that are linked together) mapping the complexity introduced by the C preprocessor back into the original C source code files. CScout takes advantage of modern hardware advances (fast processors and large memory capacities) to analyze C source code beyond the level of detail and accuracy provided by current compilers and linkers. The analysis CScout performs takes into account the identifier scopes introduced by the C preprocessor and the C language proper scopes and namespaces.

CScout as a source code analyzer can:

| • |  | annotate source code with hyperlinks to each identifier
| • |  | list files that would be affected by changing a specific identifier
| • |  | determine whether a given identifier belongs to the application or to an external library based on the accessibility and location of the header files that declare or define it
| • |  | locate unused identifiers taking into account inter-project dependencies
| • |  | perform queries for identifiers based on their namespace, scope, reachability, and regular expressions of their name and the filename(s) they are found in,
| • |  | perform queries for files, based on their metrics, or properties of the identifiers they contain
| • |  | monitor and report superfluously included header files
| • |  | provide accurate metrics on identifiers and files

More importantly, CScout helps you in refactoring code by identifying dead objects to remove, and can automatically perform accurate global rename identifier refactorings. CScout will automatically rename identifiers

| • |  | taking into account the namespace of each identifier: a renaming of a structure tag, member, or a statement label will not affect variables with the same name
| • |  | respecting the scope of the renamed identifier: a rename can affect multiple files, or variables within a single block, exactly matching the semantics the C compiler would enforce
| • |  | across multiple projects when the same identifier is defined in common shared include files
| • |  | occuring in macro bodies and parts of other identifiers, when these are created through the C preprocessor’s token concatenation feature

This manual page describes the CScout invocation and command-line options. Details about its web interface, setup, and configuration can be found in the online hypertext documentation and at the project’s home page http://www.spinellis.gr/cscout.

## OPTIONS

| -c |  | Exit immediately after processing the specified files. Useful, when you simply want to check the source code for errors.
| -E |  | Preprocess the specified file and send the result to the standard output. Note that for this option to work correctly, you need to also process the workspace definition file with -E.

-p port

The web server will listen for requests on the TCP port number specified. By default the CScout server will listen at port 8081. The port number must be in the range 1024-32767.

-m specification

Specify the type of identifiers that CScout will monitor. The identifier attribute specification is given using the syntax: Y|L|E|T[:attr1][:attr2]... The meaning of the first letter is:

| Y: |  | Match any of the specified attributes |
| L: |  | Match all of the specified attributes |
| E: |  | Exclude the specified attributes matched |
| T: |  | Exact match of the specified attributes |

Allowable attribute names and their corresponding meanings are:

unused:

Unused identifier

writable:

Writable identifier

| ro: |  | Read-only identifier |
| tag: |  | Tag for a struct/union/enum |

member:

Member of a struct/union

| label: |  | Label
| obj: |  | Ordinary identifier (note that enumeration constants and typedefs belong to the ordinary identifier namespace)
| macro: |  | Preprocessor macro

umacro:

Undefined preprocessor macro

macroarg:

Preprocessor macro argument

fscope:

Identifier with file scope

pscope:

Identifier with project scope

typedef:

Typedef

enumconst:

Enumeration constant

The -m flag can provide enormous savings on the memory CScout uses (specify e.g. -m Y:pscope to only track project-global identifiers), but the processing CScout performs under this flag is unsound. The flag should therefore be used only if you are running short of memory. There are cases where the use of preprocessor macros can change the attributes of a given identifier shared between different files. Since the -m optimization is performed after each single file is processed, the locations where an identifier is found may be misrepresented.

| -r |  | Report on the standard error output warnings about unused and wrongly scoped identifiers and unused included files. The error message format is compatible with gcc and can therefore be automatically processed by editors that recognize this format.
| -v |  | Display the CScout version and copyright information and exit.
| -3 |  | Implement support for trigraph characters.

## MORE OPTIONS

The following options are only available on the version of CScout available through a support license.

| -b |  | Operate in multiuser browse-only mode. In this mode the web server can concurrently process multiple requests. All web operations that can affect the server’s functioning (such as setting the various options, renaming identifiers, refactoring function arguments, selecting a project, editing a file, or terminating the server) are prohibited. Call graphs are truncated to 1000 elements (nodes or edges).

-H proxy host

Specify a proxy HTTP host for connecting to the program’s auditing and licensing server.

-P proxy host port

Specify the proxy HTTP host port for connecting to the program’s auditing and licensing server. The default port is 80.

-s database dialect

Dump the workspace contents as an SQL script. Specify help as the database dialect to obtain a list of supported database back-ends.

-A username:password

Specify a proxy host authorization username and password for connecting to the program’s auditing and licensing server.

-l log file

Specify the location of a file where web requests will be logged.

| -o |  | Create obfuscated versions of all the writable files of the workspace.

## EXAMPLE

Assume you want to analyze three programs in `/usr/src/bin`. You first create the following project definition file, `bin.prj`.

    # Some small tools from the src/bin directory
    workspace bin {
            ro_prefix "/usr/include"
            cd "/usr/src/bin"
            project cp {
                    cd "cp"
                    file cp.c utils.c
            }
            project echo {
                    cd "echo"
                    file echo.c
            }
            project date {
                    cd "date"
                    file date.c
            }
    }

Then you compile the workspace file `bin.prj` by running the CScout workspace compiler cswc on it, and finally you run cscout on the compiled workspace file. At that point you are ready to analyze your code and rename its identifiers through your web browser.

    $ cswc bin.prj >bin.cs
    $ cscout bin.cs
    Processing workspace bin
    Entering directory /usr/src/bin
    Processing project cp
    Entering directory cp
    Processing file cp.c
    Done processing file cp.c
    Processing file utils.c
    Done processing file utils.c
    Exiting directory cp
    Done processing project cp
    Processing project echo
    Entering directory echo
    Processing file echo.c
    Done processing file echo.c
    Exiting directory echo
    Done processing project echo
    Processing project date
    Entering directory date
    Processing file date.c
    Done processing file date.c
    Exiting directory date
    Done processing project date
    Exiting directory /usr/src/bin
    Done processing workspace bin
    Post-processing /usr/home/dds/src/cscout/bin.c
    [...]
    Post-processing /vol/src/bin/cp/cp.c
    Post-processing /vol/src/bin/cp/extern.h
    Post-processing /vol/src/bin/cp/utils.c
    Post-processing /vol/src/bin/date/date.c
    Post-processing /vol/src/bin/date/extern.h
    Post-processing /vol/src/bin/date/vary.h
    Post-processing /vol/src/bin/echo/echo.c
    Processing identifiers
    100%
    We are now ready to serve you at http://localhost:8081

## SEE ALSO

cswc(1)

## AUTHOR

(C) Copyright 2003-2005 Diomidis Spinellis.

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