SARIF Tutorials

Introduction

SARIF, the Static Analysis Results Interchange Format, defines a standard format for the output of static analysis tools. It is a powerful and sophisticated format suited to the needs of a wide variety of tools. For this reason — and because the format is defined in a 220-plus page specification written in formal language! — it can be hard to learn SARIF and to figure out what parts of it you need to use.

These tutorials aim to present SARIF in a more approachable way. We'll start with some background: Why do we need SARIF? Where did it come from? What can it do? Then we'll dive into the format, exploring the most basic concepts first, then moving on to more advanced concepts.

The advanced concepts usually apply to only a subset of SARIF producers and consumers, so you don't to read everything. Just read the introductory material, then pick and choose the additional topics that interest you.

Sample files

You can find the sample files displayed in the tutorials under the samples directory. They are all valid SARIF files unless I say otherwise.

Links to the specification

At times, the tutorials link to a section of the SARIF specification for more detailed information or descriptions of advanced scenarios. These links look like this: §3.13: sarifLog object and they point into the HTML version of the spec. There are also PDF and .docx versions in the SARIF 2.1.0 CS01 (Committee Specification 1) folder on the OASIS web site.

The specification is definitive (and if we want to get really technical, the .docx version of the specification is definitive, but let's assume there are no bugs in the PDF or HTML converters). If it seems like something in these tutorials disagrees with the spec, let me know and I'll either fix the tutorials or make sure that a bug is filed against the spec.

Disclaimer

The SARIF specification is a Committee Specification from OASIS. But despite the fact that I'm the co-Editor (with Michael Fanning) and primary wordsmith of the specification, these tutorials are not an OASIS work product or endorsed by OASIS in any way. They represent my personal interpretation and explanation of the standard.

Work in progress

As you will see from the missing links in the table of contents, there's still much more I'd like to write about. Even so, I think there's enough useful information in these tutorials to be worth your while to read.

Table of contents

• Introduction
  • What is SARIF?
  • About static analysis tools
  • Why SARIF?
  • A simple example
  • The plan for these tutorials
• The basics
  • The log file and the object model
  • Logs and runs
  • Property bags
  • Results
    • Message
    • Rule identifier
    • Level
    • Locations
      • The locations array
      • Physical and logical locations
  • Artifacts
    • Defining artifacts
    • Linking results to artifacts
  • Rule metadata
• Beyond the basics
  • More about messages (TODO)
  • Invocations (TODO)
  • Notifications (TODO)
  • Taxonomies (TODO)
  • Code flows (TODO)
• Advanced topics
  • Tool extensions (TODO)
  • Translations (TODO)
  • Handling large files (TODO)
  • Result matching (TODO)
• Appendices
  • The history of SARIF (TODO)
  • Resources

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