DO-178C Compliance for Avionics Software with CppDepend

DO-178C (Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification) is the primary standard for commercial avionics software. It assigns Design Assurance Levels (DAL A–E) based on failure severity, and defines planning, development, verification and configuration-management objectives. For the highest levels, certification authorities expect rigorous, tool-supported verification — including static analysis of source code.

DO-178C Objectives Relevant to Static Analysis

• Coding standards compliance: low-level requirements must be implemented under an enforced coding standard (many programs use MISRA C or JSF-derived rules).
• Accuracy and consistency of source code: verifiable correspondence between low-level requirements and code.
• Robustness: detection of unreachable code, data-flow anomalies and complexity beyond reviewable thresholds.
• Traceability: every analysis result must be reproducible and linked to the verification record.

How CppDepend Supports DO-178C Programs

• Coding standard enforcement: built-in MISRA C/C++ rules plus custom CQLinq rules to formalize your program-specific coding standard and JSF++-style constraints.
• Architecture control: verify that software partitioning and inter-component dependencies match the design — with dependency cycles flagged automatically.
• Metrics for reviews: cyclomatic complexity, coupling and cohesion metrics exported for SOI audits and stage-of-involvement reviews.
• Deterministic, repeatable analysis: same inputs, same results — key for certification evidence.
• CI integration: run the same checks developers run locally inside the certified build pipeline.

Related Industries & Case Studies

• Case study: DO-178C and architecture control in avionics
• Case study: safety in embedded firmware

Related Coding Standards

JSF++ AV · MISRA C · IEC 61508 · ISO 26262