The Future MISRA C under the Spotlight

摘要

MISRA, the Motor Industry Software Reliability Association, is a well-established worldwide consortium known for the quality and the rigorousness of their coding standards. In April 2016, the MISRA committee presented a collection of four new documents that specify the evolution of the process of compliancy and highlights the suitability of the C coding standard as effective security and safety-oriented guidelines. Where is MISRA C heading? We interpret the new content as intent to broaden the scope until now limited to safety-critical systems and as a need to provide a more rigorously defined process of deviation and justification; both allowing a better control of code quality and reliability. We will discuss changes, improvements, implications, and residual challenges that an organization - not necessarily one developing safety-related software - will have to make when they decide to adopt MISRA C:2012.