The Power of 10: Rules for Developing Safety-Critical Code
The Power of 10 Rules were created in 2006 by Gerard J. Holzmann of the NASA/JPL Laboratory for Reliable Software.[1] The rules are intended to eliminate certain C coding practices which make code difficult to review or statically analyze. These rules are a complement to the MISRA C guidelines and have been incorporated into the greater set of JPL coding standards.[2]
Rules[edit]
The ten rules are:[1]
- Avoid complex flow constructs, such as goto and recursion.
- All loops must have fixed bounds. This prevents runaway code.
- Avoid heap memory allocation.
- Restrict functions to a single printed page.
- Use a minimum of two runtime assertions per function.
- Restrict the scope of data to the smallest possible.
- Check the return value of all non-void functions, or cast to void to indicate the return value is useless.
- Use the preprocessor sparingly.
- Limit pointer use to a single dereference, and do not use function pointers.
- Compile with all possible warnings active; all warnings should then be addressed before release of the software.
Uses[edit]
The NASA study of the Toyota electronic throttle control firmware found at least 243 violations of these rules.[3][4]
See also[edit]
Further reading[edit]
- G.J. Holzmann (2006-06-19). "The Power of 10: Rules for Developing Safety-Critical Code". IEEE Computer. 39 (6): 95–99. doi:10.1109/MC.2006.212.
References[edit]
- ^ a b The Power of 10: Rules for Developing Safety-Critical Code
- ^ JPL C Coding Standard - JPL Laboratory for Reliable Software
- ^ Unintended Acceleration and Other Embedded Software Bugs, March 1st, 2011, by Michael Barr, Embedded Gurus
- ^ NASA Engineering and Safety Center Technical Assessment Report, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Toyota Unintended Acceleration Investigation, Appendix A