5 JavaScript Static Analysis Tools

With the rise of modern software development practices, the prominence of static analysis has grown. Static code analysis allows developers to improve the codebase’s readability and consistency while finding possible bugs and anti-patterns. Static analysis tools help us to validate the modern development standards and assess the quality of the same.

A majority of the software development teams, across the world, have been using static code analysis tools. Static code analysis identifies bad and redundant code and fixes it before it lands in production. With automated static analysis, we don’t need to rely on dynamic analysis, where the code gets executed on a processor to identify bugs.

Let’s take a look at some of the best JavaScript static analysis tools that you can make use of.

Why Use Static Analysis for JavaScript?

The Javascript ecosystem covering almost every development need has gathered pace for the past few years. With static analysis, we can easily maintain the code quality with little effort.

Bugs and duplicated code is retrieved and fixed, with code insights generated at every stage of development. It allows the developers to keep track of the blockers they might face in the code and possibly fix them, thus eliminating a pain point.

#javascript #programming #code quality #code reviews #code review tips

What is GEEK

Buddha Community

Static Code Analysis: What It Is? How to Use It?

Static code analysis refers to the technique of approximating the runtime behavior of a program. In other words, it is the process of predicting the output of a program without actually executing it.

Lately, however, the term “Static Code Analysis” is more commonly used to refer to one of the applications of this technique rather than the technique itself — program comprehension — understanding the program and detecting issues in it (anything from syntax errors to type mismatches, performance hogs likely bugs, security loopholes, etc.). This is the usage we’d be referring to throughout this post.

“The refinement of techniques for the prompt discovery of error serves as well as any other as a hallmark of what we mean by science.”

• J. Robert Oppenheimer

Outline

We cover a lot of ground in this post. The aim is to build an understanding of static code analysis and to equip you with the basic theory, and the right tools so that you can write analyzers on your own.

We start our journey with laying down the essential parts of the pipeline which a compiler follows to understand what a piece of code does. We learn where to tap points in this pipeline to plug in our analyzers and extract meaningful information. In the latter half, we get our feet wet, and write four such static analyzers, completely from scratch, in Python.

Note that although the ideas here are discussed in light of Python, static code analyzers across all programming languages are carved out along similar lines. We chose Python because of the availability of an easy to use ast module, and wide adoption of the language itself.

How does it all work?

Before a computer can finally “understand” and execute a piece of code, it goes through a series of complicated transformations:

As you can see in the diagram (go ahead, zoom it!), the static analyzers feed on the output of these stages. To be able to better understand the static analysis techniques, let’s look at each of these steps in some more detail:

Scanning

The first thing that a compiler does when trying to understand a piece of code is to break it down into smaller chunks, also known as tokens. Tokens are akin to what words are in a language.

A token might consist of either a single character, like (, or literals (like integers, strings, e.g., 7, Bob, etc.), or reserved keywords of that language (e.g, def in Python). Characters which do not contribute towards the semantics of a program, like trailing whitespace, comments, etc. are often discarded by the scanner.

Python provides the tokenize module in its standard library to let you play around with tokens:

Python

1

import io

2

import tokenize

3

4

code = b"color = input('Enter your favourite color: ')"

5

6

for token in tokenize.tokenize(io.BytesIO(code).readline):

7

    print(token)

Python

1

TokenInfo(type=62 (ENCODING),  string='utf-8')

2

TokenInfo(type=1  (NAME),      string='color')

3

TokenInfo(type=54 (OP),        string='=')

4

TokenInfo(type=1  (NAME),      string='input')

5

TokenInfo(type=54 (OP),        string='(')

6

TokenInfo(type=3  (STRING),    string="'Enter your favourite color: '")

7

TokenInfo(type=54 (OP),        string=')')

8

TokenInfo(type=4  (NEWLINE),   string='')

9

TokenInfo(type=0  (ENDMARKER), string='')

(Note that for the sake of readability, I’ve omitted a few columns from the result above — metadata like starting index, ending index, a copy of the line on which a token occurs, etc.)

#code quality #code review #static analysis #static code analysis #code analysis #static analysis tools #code review tips #static code analyzer #static code analysis tool #static analyzer

Effective Code Reviews: A Primer

Peer code reviews as a process have increasingly been adopted by engineering teams around the world. And for good reason — code reviews have been proven to improve software quality and save developers’ time in the long run. A lot has been written about how code reviews help engineering teams by leading software engineering practitioners. My favorite is this quote by Karl Wiegers, author of the seminal paper on this topic, Humanizing Peer Reviews:

Peer review – an activity in which people other than the author of a software deliverable examine it for defects and improvement opportunities – is one of the most powerful software quality tools available. Peer review methods include inspections, walkthroughs, peer deskchecks, and other similar activities. After experiencing the benefits of peer reviews for nearly fifteen years, I would never work in a team that did not perform them.

It is worth the time and effort to put together a code review strategy and consistently follow it in the team. In essence, this has a two-pronged benefit: more pair of eyes looking at the code decreases the chances of bugs and bad design patterns entering your codebase, and embracing the process fosters knowledge sharing and positive collaboration culture in the team.

Here are 6 tips to ensure effective peer reviews in your team.

1. Keep the Changes Small and Focused

Code reviews require developers to look at someone else’s code, most of which is completely new most of the times. Too many lines of code to review at once requires a huge amount of cognitive effort, and the quality of review diminishes as the size of changes increases. While there’s no golden number of LOCs, it is recommended to create small pull-requests which can be managed easily. If there are a lot of changes going in a release, it is better to chunk it down into a number of small pull-requests.

2. Ensure Logical Coherence of Changes

Code reviews are the most effective when the changes are focused and have logical coherence. When doing refactoring, refrain from making behavioral changes. Similarly, behavioral changes should not include refactoring and style violation fixes. Following this convention prevents unintended changes creeping in unnoticed in the code base.

3. Have Automated Tests, and Track Coverage

Automated tests of your preferred flavor — units, integration tests, end-to-end tests, etc. help automatically ensure correctness. Consistently ensuring that changes proposed are covered by some kind of automated frees up time for more qualitative review; allowing for a more insightful and in-depth conversation on deeper issues.

4. Self-Review Changes Before Submitting for Peer Review

A change can implement a new feature or fix an existing issue. It is recommended that the requester submits only those changes that are complete, and tested for correctness manually. Before creating the pull-request, a quick glance on what changes are being proposed helps ensure that no extraneous files are added in the changeset. This saves tons of time for the reviewers.

5. Automate What Can Be Automated

Human review time is expensive, and the best use of a developer’s time is reviewing qualitative aspects of code — logic, design patterns, software architecture, and so on. Linting tools can help automatically take care of style and formatting conventions. Continuous Quality tools can help catch potential bugs, anti-patterns and security issues which can be fixed by the developer before they make a change request. Most of these tools integrate well with code hosting platforms as well.

6. Be Positive, Polite, and Respectful

Finally, be cognizant of the fact that people on both sides of the review are but human. Offer positive feedback, and accept criticism humbly. Instead of beating oneself upon the literal meaning of words, it really pays off to look at reviews as people trying to achieve what’s best for the team, albeit in possibly different ways. Being cognizant of this aspect can save a lot of resentment and unmitigated negativity.

#agile #code quality #code review #static analysis #code analysis #code reviews #static analysis tools #code review tips #continuous quality #static analyzer

What is JavaScript - Stackfindover - Blog

Who invented JavaScript, how it works, as we have given information about Programming language in our previous article ( What is PHP ), but today we will talk about what is JavaScript, why JavaScript is used The Answers to all such questions and much other information about JavaScript, you are going to get here today. Hope this information will work for you.

Who invented JavaScript?

JavaScript language was invented by Brendan Eich in 1995. JavaScript is inspired by Java Programming Language. The first name of JavaScript was Mocha which was named by Marc Andreessen, Marc Andreessen is the founder of Netscape and in the same year Mocha was renamed LiveScript, and later in December 1995, it was renamed JavaScript which is still in trend.

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript is a client-side scripting language used with HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). JavaScript is an Interpreted / Oriented language called JS in programming language JavaScript code can be run on any normal web browser. To run the code of JavaScript, we have to enable JavaScript of Web Browser. But some web browsers already have JavaScript enabled.

Today almost all websites are using it as web technology, mind is that there is maximum scope in JavaScript in the coming time, so if you want to become a programmer, then you can be very beneficial to learn JavaScript.

JavaScript Hello World Program

In JavaScript, ‘document.write‘ is used to represent a string on a browser.

<script type="text/javascript">
	document.write("Hello World!");
</script>

How to comment JavaScript code?

• For single line comment in JavaScript we have to use // (double slashes)
• For multiple line comments we have to use / * – – * /

<script type="text/javascript">

//single line comment

/* document.write("Hello"); */

</script>

Advantages and Disadvantages of JavaScript

#javascript #javascript code #javascript hello world #what is javascript #who invented javascript

Analysis of Merge Requests in GitLab Using PVS-Studio For

Do you like GitLab and don’t like bugs? Do you want to improve the quality of your source code? Then you’ve come to the right place. Today we will tell you how to configure the PVS-Studio C# analyzer for checking merge requests. Enjoy the reading and have a nice unicorn mood.

PVS-Studio is a tool designed to detect errors and potential vulnerabilities in the source code of programs, written in C, C++, C#, and Java. Works in 64-bit systems on Windows, Linux, and macOS. Can analyze the code meant for 32-bit, 64-bit, and embedded ARM platforms.

By the way, we’ve released PVS-Studio 7.08, which was full of new sapid features. For example:

• C# analyzer under Linux and macOS;
• plugin for Rider;
• new mode for checking a list of files.

Mode of Checking a List of Files

Previously, to check certain files, one had to pass .xml to the analyzer with a list of files. But since this is not very convenient, we have added the ability to pass .txt, which makes life much simpler.

To check certain files, specify the –sourceFiles (-f) flag and pass .txt with the list of files. It looks like this:

C#

1

pvs-studio-dotnet -t path/to/solution.sln -f fileList.txt -o project.json

If you are interested in configuring checks of commits or pull requests, you can also do this using this mode. The difference will be in getting a list of files for analysis and will depend on which systems you are using.

Principle of Checking Merge Requests

The main point of checking is to make sure that problems detected by the analyzer do not make it into the master branch when merging. We also don’t want to analyze the entire project every time. Moreover, when merging branches, we have a list of changed files. Therefore, I suggest adding a merge request check.

This is how a merge request looks like before introducing a static analyzer:

In other words, all errors in the changes branch will get to the master branch. Since we wouldn’t like this, we add the analysis, and now the scheme looks as follows:

We analyze changes2 and, if there are no errors, we accept the merge request, otherwise reject it.

By the way, if you are interested in analyzing commits and pull requests for C/C++, you are welcome to read about it here.

GitLab

GitLab is an open-source DevOps lifecycle web tool that provides a code repository management system for Git with its wiki, bug tracking system, CI/CD pipeline, and other features.

Before you start implementing the merge request analysis, you need to register and upload your project. If you do not know how to do this, then I suggest an article by my colleague.

Note. One of the possible ways to configure the environment is described below. The point is to show the steps for configuring the environment needed for analyzing and running the analyzer. In your case, it may be better to separate the stages of environment preparation (adding repositories, installing the analyzer), and analysis. For example, preparing Docker instances with the necessary environment and their usage, or some other method.

To get a better understanding of what is going to happen next, I suggest taking a look at the following scheme:

The analyzer needs .NET Core SDK 3 for proper operation from which the necessary dependencies for the analyzer will be installed. Adding Microsoft repositories for various Linux distributions is described in the relevant document.

To install PVS-Studio via the package manager, you will also need to add PVS-Studio repositories. Adding repositories for various distributions is described in more detail in the relevant section of the documentation.

The analyzer needs a license key to operate. You can get a trial license on the analyzer download page.

Note. Please note that the described operating mode (merge requests analysis) requires an Enterprise license. Therefore, if you would like to try this mode of operation, don’t forget to specify that you need an Enterprise license in the “Message” field.

If a merge request occurs, we only need to analyze the list of changed files, otherwise, we analyze all files. After the analysis, we need to convert the logs to the format we need.

Now, with the algorithm in front of your eyes, you can proceed to writing the script. To do this, we need to change the .gitlab-ci.yml file or, if there is no such file, create one. To create it, click on the name of your project -> Set up CI/CD.

Now we are ready to write the script. Let’s first write the code that will install the analyzer and enter the license:

C#

1

before_script:

2

  - apt-get update && apt-get -y install wget gnupg 

3

4

  - apt-get -y install git

5

  - wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/10/

6

packages-microsoft-prod.deb -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb

7

  - dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb

8

  - apt-get update

9

  - apt-get install apt-transport-https

10

  - apt-get update

11

12

  - wget -q -O - https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt | apt-key add -

13

  - wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/viva64.list

14

https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.list

15

  - apt-get update

16

  - apt-get -y install pvs-studio-dotnet

17

18

  - pvs-studio-analyzer credentials $PVS_NAME $PVS_KEY

19

  - dotnet restore "$CI_PROJECT_DIR"/Test/Test.sln

Since installation and activation must occur before all other scripts, we use a special before_script label. Let me be clear on this fragment.

Preparation for the analyzer installation:

C#

1

  - wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/10/

2

packages-microsoft-prod.deb -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb

3

  - dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb

4

  - apt-get update

5

  - apt-get install apt-transport-https

6

  - apt-get update

Adding PVS-Studio repositories and the analyzer:

C#

1

  - wget -q -O - https://files.viva64.com/etc/pubkey.txt | apt-key add -

2

  - wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/viva64.list

3

https://files.viva64.com/etc/viva64.list

4

  - apt-get update

5

  - apt-get -y install pvs-studio-dotnet

#devops #devsecops #csharp #static analysis #gitlab #static analysis tools #static analyzer

Hire Dedicated JavaScript Developers -Hire JavaScript Developers

It is said that a digital resource a business has must be interactive in nature, so the website or the business app should be interactive. How do you make the app interactive? With the use of JavaScript.

Does your business need an interactive website or app?

Hire Dedicated JavaScript Developer from WebClues Infotech as the developer we offer is highly skilled and expert in what they do. Our developers are collaborative in nature and work with complete transparency with the customers.

The technology used to develop the overall app by the developers from WebClues Infotech is at par with the latest available technology.

Get your business app with JavaScript

For more inquiry click here https://bit.ly/31eZyDZ

Book Free Interview: https://bit.ly/3dDShFg

#hire dedicated javascript developers #hire javascript developers #top javascript developers for hire #hire javascript developer #hire a freelancer for javascript developer #hire the best javascript developers