Static Analysis

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What is static analysis?

Static code analysis is a technique to identify potential faults and vulnerabilities in software without actually running the code. Static analysis software will examine the code itself to identify possible problem locations, then work backwards to identify how those could be reached. John Carmack, founder of id Software, has written an article detailing the benefits of the technique.

Xcode

To use Xcode 4 to perform static analysis of the code, first follow the Xcode compilation instructions, then in Xcode, select "Analyze". The process will take considerably longer than just compiling the source, so be patient.