This talk will convey the experience of using Coverity for AliRoot software in A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE). AliRoot consistently undergoes intensive development and release cycles, thus creating an increasing demand for automated high precision tools aiding developers in maintaining coding standards and ensuring code correctness. Coverity as a software solution, providing both static code analysis facilities and a centralised web interface, is actively enforced within the collaboration. The talk will start by describing the approach taken to set up Coverity and the automation process. It will also look at the use policy and the observed effects. The presentation will then explore checkers of varying impact with few examples of observed defects. In addition, examples of false positive cases will be presented with an explanation on how to model Coverity to ignore them. Thirdly, the talk will provide a critical evaluation of the application of Coverity to the AliRoot code with some considerations on the usage of automated tools in High Energy Physics (HEP) experiment software development. In conclusion, the talk will explore additional tools extensively used within ALICE for ensuring good coding standards.
