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Verification Process

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SDV conducts a verification, that is, a test to determine whether the driver's actual behavior complies with rules that define proper behavior.

When you submit a command to verify a driver, SDV performs a three-step process, during which it determines which files it needs, prepares the files, and verifies the driver.

This topic describes what happens in each of the steps of the verification process.

Build

During the Build step, SDV compiles, links, and builds the driver using MSBuild.

Scan

During the Scan step, SDV scans your driver's code for function role type declarations, assembles a list of driver entry points, and creates the Sdv-map.h file in the directory that stores the sources file for the driver (known as the driver's sources directory).

Check

During the Check step, SDV prepares for and verifies the driver by using the rules that you selected for the verification. For more information about the rules that you can select, see Static Driver Verifier Rules.

SDV begins by determining if the selected rules require additional components of the operating system model. If they do, SDV copies the additional operating system model files into the driver's sources directory.

Next, the driver files, library files, rule code (RuleName.slic) files, and operating system model files are linked into a single executable file for the verification.

The SDV verification engine then verifies one rule at a time, until it verifies all selected rules.

During this step, SDV creates a subdirectory for each rule that it verified in the DriverPath\sdv\check directory.

Comment

While SDV performs the steps in the verification process, it writes status messages to the command line, along with error messages that report errors that arise in each step. For information about the status messages, see Command-Line Output. For information about the error messages, see Static Driver Verifier Error Messages. For information about enabling diagnostics to help you and Microsoft troubleshoot problems with SDV, see Static Driver Verifier Diagnostics.