Coccinelle Users Day - 2009

Coccinelle Users Day
November 25, 2009
Paris, LiP6-Passy-Kennedy, room 554

Information for participants

Slides from the workshop

Exercises from the workshop

Coccinelle is a program matching and transformation engine targeting C code. Coccinelle can be used to automate code evolutions, such as updating code in response to API changes, and for bug finding. In particular, in contrast to other bug finding tools, Coccinelle is easily configurable with new bug finding rules, based on a rule language, SmPL, that is very close to C code. This makes it possible to tailor the evolution or bug finding process to the needs and conventions of a specific software project.

The purpose of this users day is to present Coccinelle to new users and to help existing users get more out of their use of the tool. It should be of interest to anyone who is responsible for maintaining a large code base. Because Coccinelle can also be used for searching for code patterns, without transformation, the users day should also be of interest to anyone interested in understanding software structure and history.

The day will consist of presentations about Coccinelle and associated tools, as well as a lab session, interspersed with presentations of more advanced topics. An approximate schedule for the day is as follows:

9:30-10:00:

Welcome coffee and croissants

10:00-12:30:

Morning session:

• Overview of Coccinelle
• SmPL basics
• Installation of Coccinelle on attendee machines

12:30-14:00:

Lunch

14:00-18:00:

Afternoon session:

• Coccinelle advanced features (inheritance of metavariables, position variables, dependencies between rules, the use of Python, isomorphisms, etc.)
• Semantic patch inference using spfind
• Tracking bugs over multiple software versions using Herodotos

The afternoon talks will be interspersed with lab sessions, in which participants can test Coccinelle on their own software or available open source projects.

Participants are requested to bring laptops on which they can install Coccinelle. Linux is preferred, however, Coccinelle is also usable under Windows, Mac, and BSD variants.

To register for the users day, please contact Nadia MESRAR. There is no charge for the users day, and lunch will be provided. Attendance will be limited to 25 participants.

How to reach Lip6, Kennedy-Passy: directions

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The Coccinelle Users days is organized by the INRIA REGAL research team and the CIRILL research and innovation center on Free Software.