a³ release 24.10

New targets

• All tools for TriCore now support TC212 and TC222.

General improvements

• The size of workspace files has been greatly reduced.
• The integrated PDF viewer now supports more navigation shortcuts.

Qualification Support Kits

• New board-specific QSKs:
  • aiT for TC379 (32-bit)
  • aiT for TC389 (32-bit)
  • aiT for TC399 (32-bit)
  • aiT for TMS320F28335 (32-bit)
• New compiler-specific QSKs:
  • aiT for C28x with TI 6.2.0
  • StackAnalyzer for C28x with TI 6.2.0
• New test cases:

  qk_ais2_adjust_trace_segment_runtimes_function	ARM
  qk_ais2_adjust_trace_segment_runtimes_robustness	ARM

• The default report file location is now based on the QSK installation path, and no longer on the current working directory.

AbsInt License Manager (ALM)

When upgrading your client from a release older than 23.10, make sure to upgrade your License Manager as well. This is necessary due to the new TLS-encrypted connection between the client and the License Manager that was first introduced in release 23.10.

Text search

In all editor views, searching by pressing Ctrl+F now automatically pre-fills the search field with the current selection. If nothing is selected, the word currently under the text cursor is used.

Graph search

Improved highlighting of search results.

Symbols view

• Improved “Query contents” operation.
• Extended filter to allow searching for sections.

Statistics views

Editing the columns is now persistent across multiple a³ instances.

Difference Viewer

Improved refreshing of the Results tab.

Annotations

• Improved handling of not-analyzed code snippets with multiple continuation points.
• Improved resolution of complex call-target annotations.
• Faster evaluation of sets-of-values expressions.

DWARF

• Improved support for Rust enum types.

Cache and pipeline analysis

• General improvements to the analysis speed.
• Improved heuristics for the automatic use of either basic block or prediction graph level path analysis.

Path analysis

Improved memory usage of the ILP solving phase.

Value analysis

• Potential NULL pointer de-references are now classified as info messages rather than warnings.
• Improved detection of contradictions between annotated (constant) memory contents and analyzed code.
• The maximum size limit for value sets has been increased.

ARM

• Added a switch-table pattern that heuristically guesses the switch-table size.
• Improved handling of invalid guarded code blocks for Thumb.
• The UDF instruction, which raises an undefined instruction exception, is now handled as a program end.
• Improved PC-relative switch-table decoding.

C28x

• Improved handling of copy sections in COFF files.
• Higher analysis precision for the xpread instruction.

TriCore

• Support for TC212 and TC222 (both AURIX 1st GEN).
• Improved automatic switch table decoding.
• Improved handling of calls to external routines for 1st and 2nd GEN AURIX.
• Higher analysis precision for the madd.u instruction.

Other target architectures

• C33: Improved handling of copy sections in COFF files.
• e200: Improved handling of memory serialized instructions.
• RISC-V: Added a switch-table pattern that heuristically guesses the switch-table size.
• RL78: Added support for ?C_SSWITCH_L10 switch tables.

TimeWeaver

• Reduced memory usage.
• More robust automatic detection of trace formats.
• Trace segments are now context-sensitively exported to the XML report. If trace segment times have been imported from another trace segment, this is reported in the new attribute adjust_edge_id that encodes the id of the trace graph edge (aka trace segment).
• Export configured trace segment similarity features alongside the specified shared memory regions to the XML report.
• Export trace segment feature vectors to XML report.