Configure & Run C, C++ and Objective-C Scan with SonarQube

This SonarSource project, available as a GitHub Action, sets up the tools needed to configure and run scans of C, C++, and Objective-C projects with SonarQube.

SonarQube is a widely used static analysis solution for continuous code quality and security inspection. It helps developers identify and fix issues in their code that could lead to bugs, vulnerabilities, or decreased development velocity. SonarQube supports the most popular programming languages, including Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, C#, Python, C, C++, and many more.

Requirements

To run an analysis on your code, you first need to set up your project on SonarQube. Your SonarQube instance must be accessible from GitHub, and you will need a Project analysis token or a Global analysis token to run the analysis (more information below under Environment variables).

Read more information on how to analyze your code here.

Usage

Project metadata, including the location to the sources to be analyzed, must be declared in the file sonar-project.properties in the base directory:

sonar.projectKey=<replace with the key generated when setting up the project on SonarQube>

# relative paths to source directories. More details and properties are described
# in https://docs.sonarsource.com/sonarqube/latest/project-administration/analysis-scope/
sonar.sources=.

The workflow, usually declared in .github/workflows/build.yml, looks like:

on:
  # Trigger analysis when pushing in master or pull requests, and when creating
  # a pull request.
  push:
    branches:
      - master
  pull_request:
      types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
name: Main Workflow
jobs:
  sonarqube:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      BUILD_WRAPPER_OUT_DIR: build_wrapper_output_directory # Directory where build-wrapper output will be placed
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      with:
        # Disabling shallow clone is recommended for improving relevancy of reporting
        fetch-depth: 0
    - name: Install sonar-scanner and build-wrapper
      uses: sonarsource/sonarqube-github-c-cpp@v2
      env:
        SONAR_HOST_URL: ${{ secrets.SONAR_HOST_URL }}
        SONAR_ROOT_CERT: ${{ secrets.SONAR_ROOT_CERT }}
    - name: Run build-wrapper
      run: |
      # here goes your compilation wrapped with build-wrapper; See https://docs.sonarsource.com/sonarqube/latest/analyzing-source-code/languages/c-family/#using-build-wrapper for more information
      # build-preparation steps
      # build-wrapper-linux-x86-64 --out-dir ${{ env.BUILD_WRAPPER_OUT_DIR }} build-command
    - name: Run sonar-scanner
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
        SONAR_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.SONAR_TOKEN }}
        SONAR_HOST_URL: ${{ secrets.SONAR_HOST_URL }}
      run: sonar-scanner --define sonar.cfamily.compile-commands="${{ env.BUILD_WRAPPER_OUT_DIR }}/compile_commands.json" #Consult https://docs.sonarsource.com/sonarqube/latest/analyzing-source-code/scanners/sonarscanner/ for more information and options

If you are using SonarQube 10.5 or earlier, use sonar.cfamily.build-wrapper-output instead of sonar.cfamily.compile-commands in the run property of the last step, as Build Wrapper does not generate a compile_commands.json file before SonarQube 10.6, like this:

      run: sonar-scanner --define sonar.cfamily.build-wrapper-output="${{ env.BUILD_WRAPPER_OUT_DIR }}"

You can change the build-wrapper and sonar-scanner installation path by using the optional input installation-path like this:

uses: sonarsource/sonarqube-github-c-cpp@v2
with:
  installation-path: my/custom/directory/path

Also, the absolute paths to the installed build-wrapper and sonar-scanner binaries are returned as outputs from the action.

Moreover, by default the action will cache sonar-scanner installation. However, you can disable caching by using the optional input: cache-binaries like this:

uses: sonarsource/sonarqube-github-c-cpp@v2
with:
  cache-binaries: false

If your SonarQube server uses a self-signed certificate, you can pass a root certificate (in PEM format) to the java certificate store:

uses: sonarsource/sonarqube-github-c-cpp@v2
env:
  SONAR_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.SONAR_TOKEN }}
  SONAR_HOST_URL: ${{ secrets.SONAR_HOST_URL }}
  SONAR_ROOT_CERT: ${{ secrets.SONAR_ROOT_CERT }}

See also example configurations

Secrets and environment variables

Following secrets are required for successful invocation of sonar-scanner:

• SONAR_TOKEN – Required this is the token used to authenticate access to SonarQube. You can read more about security tokens here. You can set the SONAR_TOKEN environment variable in the "Secrets" settings page of your repository, or you can add them at the level of your GitHub organization (recommended).
• GITHUB_TOKEN – Provided by Github (see Authenticating with the GITHUB_TOKEN).

Environment variables:

• SONAR_HOST_URL – Required this tells the scanner where SonarQube is hosted. You can set the SONAR_HOST_URL environment variable in the "Secrets" settings page of your repository, or you can add them at the level of your GitHub organization (recommended).
• SONAR_ROOT_CERT – Holds an additional root certificate (in PEM format) that is used to validate the SonarQube server certificate. You can set the SONAR_ROOT_CERT environment variable in the "Secrets" settings page of your repository, or you can add them at the level of your GitHub organization (recommended).

Do not use this GitHub action if you are in the following situations

• You want to analyze code that doesn't have C, C++, or Objective-C? Use the SonarQube Scan GitHub Action instead
• You want to run the action on a 32-bits system - build wrappers support only 64-bits OS

Additional information

This action installs coreutils if run on macOS

Have question or feedback?

To provide feedback (requesting a feature or reporting a bug) please post on the SonarSource Community Forum with the tag sonarqube.

License

The action file and associated scripts and documentation in this project are released under the LGPLv3 License.