Knowledge Software Ltd Home Page

Introduction

Knowledge Software has been in the business developing tools for software development and source code analysis consultancy since 1983. The company has taken an active role in the creation of the C standard since 1987, the MISRA C++ guidelines since 2004, and most recently the ISO working group on programming language vulnerabilities.

Knowledge Software provide consultancy on software quality assurance, software porting, coding guidelines and standards, and other software engineering related issues. Past projects have included writing a portable front end for a validated C compiler, a front end for checking embedded SQL/2, a tool for converting Pascal like languages to C, and retargeting a Cobol intermediate code to a variety of RISC processors.

C Related Products

OSPC (Open Systems Portability Checker) was launched in 1992. This tool checks applications, written in C, for conformance to a wide variety of standards. It provides automated quality assurance validation for International, Automotive and corporate environments.

OSPC can be used to solve your portability, maintainability, complexity, quality assurance, style analysis, code review, software metric, standards adherence, and company compliance problems. Standards for which support is provided off the shelf include XPG/4 and POSIX.

OSPC can also check applications that contain embedded SQL declarations and statements. This checking includes SQL level checking and the C/SQL interface.

Obtaining OSPC

For more information on OSPC

Compiler validation

Knowledge Software is the European distributor for the Perennial range of compiler validation tools. Languages covered include C, C++ and Java.

Call for more information, or to arrange a demonstration.

Books, articles and papers

The book The New C Standard (Jan 08: updated to version 1.1).
Various experiments on the performance of software developers, performed in 2006 and 2007.
Verifying claims of Open Systems conformance
The Open Systems Portability Checker
Checking an Applications use of API's
Commentary on the MISRA C Guidelines.
Migrating from 32 to 64 bit systems
Applications POSIX.1 conformance testing
Checking C code containing embedded SQL
Reusing C code in Java
Translating C to Ada
Who guards the guardians?
Year 2000 problems in C
Back issues of OSPC Update.

Services

NPL are offering a C code validation service using OSPC to perform static and dynamic checks.

Example output

Other tools and products

CtoA converts programs written in C into Ada. The tool is based on CtoP (the manual of CtoP version 1 is available in postscript and the executable is available as shareware, search under the DOS index for CtoP) and it is currently frozen at the end of the first design phase. Port-a-Kit is a portable P-code interpreter for the UCSD Pascal environment. Written in C it has been ported to a wide variety of platforms and is license in source code form.

TEL: +44 1252-520667

OSPC@knosof.co.uk