UBSan

This file describes what UBSan is and how to use it.

Introduction

UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer (UBSan) is a fast undefined behavior detector. UBSan modifies the program at compile-time to catch various kinds of undefined behavior during program execution.

Setup

To use UBSan, add the -fsanitize=undefined option (undefined for Undefined Behaviour) to both the compiling and linking steps. This will compile the program with UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer enabled.

Usage

When running a program that is compiled with UBSan enabled, whenever certain types of undefined behaviour occur, there is a message printed out into the terminal the program is running in.

Limitations

Not a static analysis tool

Since UBSan is not a static analyzer, it can only detect issues in the code that is being executed. No UBSan output only means that there have been no issues detected only in the paths the program actually took, and unless the execution has somehow passed through all the possible code path combinations with all the possible variable values, one can never be certain from running UBSan that all the issues in the code have been detected.