---
name: "lint"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "lclint"
version: "1:2.4b-1"
release: "Debian 2.2 (Potato)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/lclint"
---

# lint(1)

a tool for statically checking C programs

Part of [lclint(1)](/lclint/1.md).

## NAME

lclint - a tool for statically checking C programs

## SYNOPSIS

**lclint** *\[options\] files ...*

## DESCRIPTION

This manual page documents very briefly the **lclint** command. This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution (but may be used by others), because the original program does not have a manual page. Instead, it has documentation in HTML format; see below.

**lclint** is a tool for statically checking C programs.  With minimal effort,  **lclint** can be used as a better lint.  If additional effort is invested adding annotations to programs,  **lclint** can perform stronger checks than can be done by any standard lint.

**lclint** does many of the traditional lint checks including unused declarations, type inconsistencies, use-before-definition, unreachable code, ignored return values, execution paths with no return, likely infinite loops, and fall-through cases. The main focus, however, is on more powerful checks that are made possible by additional information given in source code annotations. Annotations are stylized comments that document certain assumptions about functions, variables, parameters, and types. They may be used to indicate where the representation of a user-defined type is hidden, to limit where a global variable may be used or modified, to constrain what a function implementation may do to its parameters, and to express checked assumptions about variables, types, structure fields, function parameters, and function results.  In addition to the checks specifically enabled by annotations, many of the traditional lint checks are improved by exploiting this additional information.

## OPTIONS

**lclint** supports over 300 flags which are completely documented in the HTML  documentation (to be found in the lclint-doc package on a Debian system) and the online help. The online help is invoked via the option

- **-help**

  Show summary of online help options.

## SEE ALSO

The program is fully documented by *The LCLint User's Guide*, which is available in the lclint-doc package.

## AUTHOR

This manual page was written by Christian Meder \<meder@isr.uni-stuttgart.de\>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system.