Coccinelle is a program matching and transformation engine which provides the language SmPL (Semantic Patch Language) for specifying desired matches and transformations in C code. Coccinelle was initially targeted towards performing collateral evolutions in Linux. Such evolutions comprise the changes that are needed in client code in response to evolutions in library APIs, and may include modifications such as renaming a function, adding a function argument whose value is somehow context-dependent, and reorganizing a data structure. Beyond collateral evolutions, Coccinelle is successfully used (by us and others) for finding and fixing bugs in systems code.

Utility
Coccinelle was initially used to aid the evolution of the Linux kernel, providing support for changes to library application programming interfaces (APIs) such as renaming a function, adding a function argument whose value is somehow context-dependent, and reorganizing a data structure.

It can also be used to find defective programming patterns in code (i.e., pieces of code that are erroneous with high probability such as possible NULL pointer dereference) without transforming them. Then coccinelle's role is close to that of static analysis tools. Examples of such use are provided by the applications of the herodotos tool, which keeps track of warnings generated by coccinelle.

Support for Coccinelle is provided by IRILL. Funding for the development has been provided by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France), the Danish Research Council for Technology and Production Sciences, and INRIA.

The source code of Coccinelle is licensed under the terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPL). 

Specifications

Industry :

Information technology