Analysis Profiles

Analysis Profiles

The analyzer supports two analysis profiles that control the precision/performance tradeoff.

--analysis-profile=fast|full

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full (default)

The default profile. Provides maximum analysis coverage and precision.

• No instruction-count limit for StackBufferOverflow and MultipleStores checks
• No per-function GEP/store budget limit
• Full alias backtracking through pointer stores is enabled
• Result: better coverage/precision, but potentially much slower on large translation units

Best for:

• Local development analysis
• Single-file analysis
• When precision is more important than speed

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fast

Designed for CI/CD batch scans where speed matters.

• Functions larger than 1200 IR instructions are skipped for StackBufferOverflow and MultipleStores checks
• StackBufferOverflow analyzes at most 16 getelementptr sites per function
• MultipleStores analyzes at most 32 store sites per function
• Alias backtracking through pointer stores is disabled for these two checks
• Result: significantly faster runs, with possible false negatives on very large/complex functions

Best for:

• CI/CD pipeline scans
• Large codebases with compile_commands.json
• Quick feedback during development

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Auto-Selection

When inputs are auto-discovered from compile_commands.json (no explicit input files on the CLI) and multiple files are found, the CLI automatically selects fast unless you explicitly pass --analysis-profile=full.

This prevents accidentally running a full-precision scan on an entire project, which could be very slow.

# Auto-selects fast because inputs come from compdb and there are multiple files
./build/stack_usage_analyzer --compdb=build/compile_commands.json

# Force full even with compdb auto-discovery
./build/stack_usage_analyzer --compdb=build/compile_commands.json --analysis-profile=full

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Examples

# Explicit fast profile
./build/stack_usage_analyzer --compile-commands=build/compile_commands.json --analysis-profile=fast

# Explicit full profile
./build/stack_usage_analyzer --compile-commands=build/compile_commands.json --analysis-profile=full

# Single file always defaults to full
./build/stack_usage_analyzer main.cpp