Richard Daley Associates

Developed by Richard Daley Associates, the Multipol CHILL Analyser (MCA) is a bespoke source-code static analysis tool which ensures that source code written in Multipol and CHILL follows the rules and programming guidelines defined for use with Alcatel System 12 development software. It ensures that source code written in Multipol and CHILL follows the coding rules and programming guidelines defined for use with System 12 development software. It may be run standalone using the MCA graphical user interface or it may be used in batch mode. MCA has also been integrated into S12DEU. MCA is particularly useful in helping to clean up legacy code and it features snapshot and delta facilities to allow users to simply check their own updates.

The results of using MCA were impressive enough for Alcatel Management to advocate that MCA be used on all projects. After all, it is much better to find a potential problem before release than in the field! A good example of the power of MCA is that it can identify variables that are used but not initialised.

The following information is from Alcatel slides reviewing the first use of MCA on a real project:

As stated by the Alcatel project team "The project, the developers and the tools organisation are extremely satisfied with this result which by far surpasses its originally estimated benefit. With this proven success we can only say that indeed the MCA tool is highly contributing to our efforts for error prevention and early error detection and has come just in time as extra help in keeping up the quality that Belgacom and other clients expect and demand from us. The MCA tool is thus really a MUST for every module developer."

MCA will analyse the Multipol and CHILL module source (including Include files), compare the source with a number of pre-defined rules, and identify a number of issues where the rules may have been broken. The results are then processed for viewing or editing allowing the user to make the desired changes. The Multipol and CHILL source is evaluated according to Alcatel rules and conventions; for example:

• Simple Rules: such as ensuring that naming conventions are followed, or identifying a label that may occur in the wrong place.
• Complex Rules: such as checking to ensure a RETURN statement is not missing from the code, or that 'While Loop' variables should be assigned to at least once in the local scope of the loop body.

Over 140 rules are currently defined within MCA.

The set of rules checked is configurable to allow different projects to determine which checks are appropriate to their project. This includes deciding the category and severity for each check performed by MCA. One project may have a particular rule defined as high severity whilst another project may decide it has a low severity.

Some projects also decide to use MCA as part of the acceptance test procedure for any module.

A delta facility is provided to allow differences in a module to be isolated. The results of two executions of MCA on the same module may be compared to find differences and these differences may be examined in detail.

MCA is a powerful tool that is simple to us It is supported by a 100 page User Guide. Alcatel staff may email RDA to request a copy of the User Guide.

Click here to find information on the different versions of MCA.