Using the 'cov-make-library' command

The cov-make-library command behaves as follows:

Uses mangled function names for C++ models, but not for C models.
Uses a C++ extension for C++ models: .cpp, .cc, or .cxx.

Note: Typically, cov-make-library expects header (.h) files to reside in same directory as the source files that use them. If headers or other files to include reside in a different directory, use the cov-make-library --compiler-opt flag to specify additional include directories.

You can use the cov-make-library command to create custom models for methods. For more information, see "Models and primitives" in Customizing Coverity.

C++ programs use extern "C" semantics to declare C functions, and those semantics apply to the library models as well. Because library files are parsed only (rather than compiled and built into executables), you can use external references to undefined functions or types. Rather than relying on linkage, the analysis uses function names to determine which models to use.

To create the model files, specify the following arguments to the cov-make-library command:

(Required) The list of source files that contain the stub library functions
(Optional) The computed model’s output file name from the -of modulefile option of the cov-make-library command
Note: If you do not specify the -of modulefile option, the output file goes into the default location.
(Optional) The path to the XML configuration file (-c path/to/coverity_config.xml)

Note: In most cases, the default specifications for configuration and output files work correctly.

For more examples, see the following sections that describe how to override and add specific models for allocators and panic functions.

The cov-make-library command creates either the file user_models.xmldb or the output file that you specified with the -of option to the cov-make-library command. If the output file already exists, the most current output is appended to it. The following order of precedence determines the directory where the model file gets created:

The -of option, if you specified it
<install_dir>/config

The coverity_config.xml file contains an encoded version of the models. The analysis reads these models and gives them precedence over other models. If there is a conflict, the models the user explicitly specifies are always used. To indicate to cov-analyze that it should read the user_file.xmldb file, specify it on the command line by using the --user-model-file option.

In this section: