I just spent 3 days getting static driver verifier to work on a pretty simple driver and thought I’d share the silliness I had to jump though.
There were two major root problems:
SDV chokes on TraceLoggingProvider.h if included in a .cpp file. You don’t have to use anything in the .h, simply including it causes the problem. I was fortunate there was only a small amount of code that required C++ mode, and after converting it back to generic C, and renaming the file to .c, SDV stopped complaining about this issue, and TraceLogging calls were happy. If using pure C was not an option, another potential (untested) workaround would be to make a custom TraceLoggingProvider.h with all the _CPLUSPLUS #ifdef sections removed/deactivated.
The second problem was SDV can’t parse quoted strings passed as compiler /D options. I had a version string which was set in the project as VERSION_STRING=“1.2.3.4” in the compiler defines section. Actually my project set VERSION_STRING=$(VERSION_STRING) which passes the msbuild property which had the value “1.2.3.4”, which I set in a .props file, but the simpler literal quoted string also fails. This gave a very cryptic error about a link failure, and none of the standard SDV log files seems to say anything about a link failure. I eventually used the debug SDV build: msbuild /t:sdv /p:Inputs=“/check:* /debug” mydriver.VcxProj /p:Configuration=“Release” /p:Platform=x64 , described at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/devtest/static-driver-verifier-diagnostics. Running the SDV msbuild from the command line ended in an error on the final compile of dynamicbus, and a log was being generated a couple directories down. The log had a bunch of warnings and a fatal error that warning.h could not be found. Looking at the command line it used for the compiler, the quoted version string was clearly corrupted, like VERSION_STRING='/|1.2.3.4/|“”. The workaround was to pass the unquoted value 1.2.3.4 and then use the preprocessor stringize operator/macro to turn it into “1.2.3.4”. The normal compiler is perfectly happy to use a quoted string.
After all this fooling around, SDV reported there were no errors detected, but didn’t offer to give me 3 days back.
The project built just fine normally and only had issues with SDV builds. I’m not sure when these regressions were introduced, although I know a driver written about 2 years ago used TraceLoggingProvider.h and SDV worked as that driver passed the HLK tests. I’ve been using the .props file for version data for probably about 7 years now. I almost always use .cpp files, and it’s about 50/50 I use any C++ features in a driver.
In future WDK releases, I’d like to see MSFT do a little broader testing of SDV, like do the MSFT include files actually compile under SDV ok. I’d also like to see the SDV UI panel have a little checkbox for SDV debugging enabled, it’s such fun to have a fatal tool error and zero clues in any log files.
On this project, a simple KMDF driver, SDV was more pain than benefits.
Jan