Analyzing a simple C++ program with Frama-C - c++

Question

I started learning C++ from a great tutorial available at https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/c++/ and would like to analyze in Frama-C a simplest example that shows references:
using namespace std;
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int main() {
string foo = "I am foo";
string bar = "I am bar";
string& fooRef = foo; // This creates a reference to foo.
fooRef += ". Hi!"; // Modifies foo through the reference
cout << fooRef; // Prints "I am foo. Hi!"
// Doesn't reassign "fooRef". This is the same as "foo = bar", and
// foo == "I am bar"
// after this line.
cout << &fooRef << endl; //Prints the address of foo
fooRef = bar;
cout << &fooRef << endl; //Still prints the address of foo
cout << fooRef; // Prints "I am bar"
//The address of fooRef remains the same, i.e. it is still referring to foo.
return 0;
}
I compiled and installed Frama-C C++ plug-in called "Frama-Clang".
Now when I run frama-c I get warnings and errors in the output:
$ frama-c refs.cc
[kernel] Parsing FRAMAC_SHARE/libc/__fc_builtin_for_normalization.i (no preprocessing)
[kernel] Parsing refs.cc (external front-end)
refs.cc:13:17: warning: using directive refers to implicitly-defined namespace 'std'
using namespace std;
^
In file included from refs.cc:14:
In file included from /usr/share/frama-c/frama-clang/libc++/iostream:29:
/usr/share/frama-c/frama-clang/libc++/ostream:31:40: error: implicit instantiation of undefined template 'std::basic_ios<char, std::char_traits<char> >'
class basic_ostream : virtual public basic_ios<charT,traits> {
^
refs.cc:23:7: note: in instantiation of template class 'std::basic_ostream<char, std::char_traits<char> >' requested here
cout << fooRef; // Prints "I am foo. Hi!"
^
/usr/share/frama-c/frama-clang/libc++/iosfwd:37:68: note: template is declared here
template <class charT, class traits = char_traits<charT> > class basic_ios;
^
code generation aborted due to one compilation error
[kernel] user error: Failed to parse C++ file. See Clang messages for more information
[kernel] user error: stopping on file "refs.cc" that has errors.
[kernel] Frama-C aborted: invalid user input.
What is wrong?
(Frama-C is installed from a debian-testing repository in version 20170501+phosphorus+dfsg-2)

Answer 1

First of all, I'd like to point out the caveat on the Frama-Clang page:
Frama-Clang is currently in an early stage of development. It is known to be incomplete and comes without any bug-freeness guarantee.
Thus, if you're not already familiar with C++, I'd kindly suggest that starting right away with Frama-Clang might be a pretty big effort.
That said, the issue is, as mentioned in the comments, that STL support in Frama-Clang is minimal (in particular, the innocent-looking iostream is not exactly the easiest piece of code to handle when it comes to templates).
You might have better luck by using frama-c -cxx-nostdinc refs.cc, which will use your system's standard library instead of the one shipped with Frama-Clang: this will at least let clang type-check your code. There is however absolutely no guarantee that Frama-Clang itself will be able to understand all the constructions provided by this library.