Quantitative Evaluation of Static Analysis Tools

Abstract

This paper presents a quantitative comparison of static analysis tools. First, we conduct a wide-ranging survey of static analysis tools and select several promising tools qualitatively. Second, we build test suites that contain a large variety of defects and evaluate the selected tools with them. Third, we derive several metrics for measuring tool performance and subsequently clarify the characteristics of the said tools by using them. Finally, we quantitatively identify the best tools from several different viewpoints.