OOO "Program Verification Systems"'s plans on developing its own software products

09 Jui 2009

Author: Evgenii Ryzhkov

Since the beginning of the spring 2009 our company has been rapidly developing a new program product PVS-Studio which is a development of Viva64 and VivaMP code analyzers. Now it's high time it was announced. But before doing this I'll give a brief historical reference.

The first version of Viva64 1.0 software product was released December 31st, 2006 ( versions history). Of course its implementation was not at a high level for it was very important for us to launch the product as soon as possible and get users' response on the very technology of analyzing problems in 64-bit programs. And although it seems to me that we managed to avoid crude program errors, still even Viva64 2.0 version released July 9th, 2008 was far from being ideal.

Besides, November 27th, 2008 the first beta-version of our new VivaMP analyzer 1.00 beta was released which enabled the community of software developers to develop parallel programs in a simpler way with the help of OpenMP technology. The program was different from Viva64 only in the "stuffing", that is in the errors diagnosed, while VivaMP's interface was the same as in Viva64. Actually it was a copy of Viva64 operating in a different way. And although it is not convenient and logical from the user's viewpoint to have two identical programs (Viva64 and VivaMP), this approach allowed us to introduce the technology of detecting errors in parallel programs on market more quickly.

Now, in 2009 it's high time we improved our developments up to a more serious level.

I am glad to introduce a new software product by OOO "Program Verification Systems" named PVS-Studio (PVS is an abbreviation of our company's name). PVS-Studio is a static code analyzer intended for simplifying development of modern applications in C and C++ languages. PVS-Studio unites the preceding developments of the company (software products Viva64 and VivaMP) into one solution. Everything that has been performed by the two tools (Viva64 and VivaMP) before is now performed by one PVS-Studio tool.

At present PVS-Studio software product contains two code analyzers. The first one is intended for simplifying development of 64-bit applications and also reducing the cost of migration of obsolete 32-bit code on a new platform. Earlier this was a separate tool Viva64. The second code analyzer is intended for simplifying development of parallel programs using OpenMP technology. Earlier it was VivaMP product.

Thus, our two products Viva64 and VivaMP will be distributed as a single tool kit of code analysis tools under the name of PVS-Studio. Moreover, we have composed the PVS-Studio licensing conditions so that you can purchase both separate code analysis units and the whole tool at once. Licenses are intended for single developers and for teams of 1-5 persons.

PVS-Studio product differs from Viva64 and VivaMP in that it allows you to:

perform code analysis in several threads;
conveniently and quickly operate the filters of diagnostic messages and error codes;
launch analysis in batch mode (you need to prepare command files);

Release of PVS-Studio is planned by the end of the summer 2009. But as PVS-Studio is a logical development and continuation of the line of Viva64 and VivaMP products we have decided not to reset numbering of the product's versions. That's why the version to be released will have number 3.00. We are planning to stop releasing separate products Viva64 and VivaMP in future but they will be available as separate units in PVS-Studio.

I can define PVS-Studio software product as a code analyzer for solving modern problems which programmers face instead of detecting already known and irrelevant errors like uninitialized variables or access to a zero pointer which have become obsolete 10 years ago.

So we are planning to release PVS-Studio at the end of the summer 2009.