- Read through the .NET Compiler Platform SDK for understanding the different Roslyn elements
(Syntax Nodes, Tokens, Trivia)
. The factory methods and APIs are super useful. - Learning this tutorial for custom analyzers and trying it is quite useful to get started. It is an easy, step-by-step tutorial, and it also has a template for generating an analyzer, fixer and unit test, which saves time. The tutorial has a good explanation and would give you a good understanding of how Roslyn analyzers work.
- Clone the
dotnet/roslyn-analyzers
repo, install all required dependencies and build the repo by the instructions. - Follow the coding style of the
dotnet/roslyn-analyzers
repo. Guidelines about new rule id and doc. - Open
RoslynAnalyzers.sln
and open the package where you are creating your analyzer. In our case, it is mostlyMicrosoft.CodeAnalysis.NetAnalyzers
->Microsoft.NetCore.Analyzers
. Create your analyzer and/or fixer class in the corresponding folder. - Add a message, title and description for your analyzer into
MicrosoftNetCoreAnalyzersResources.resx
and build the repo before using the analyzer. The language-specific resources will be generated. - Make sure you have done everything from the Definition of done list below.
Branch | SDK | Description |
---|---|---|
2.9.x | Does not ship in the .NET SDK | A special branch compatible with Visual Studio 2017 where security analyzers are shipped from. |
main | .NET SDK 8.0.0xx | Currently active branch. All work should target this branch unless it is a bugfix for a previous release |
release/5.0.3xx | .NET SDK 5.0.3xx | Servicing branch for the .NET 5 SDK. |
release/6.0.1xx | .NET SDK 6.0.0xx | Servicing branch for the .NET 6 SDK. |
release/7.0.1xx | .NET SDK 7.0.1xx | Servicing branch for the .NET 7 SDK. |
- Analyzer implemented to work for C# and VB.
- Unit tests for C#:
- All scenarios covered.
- Prefer markup syntax for the majority of tests.
- If your analyzer has placeholders in the diagnostic message and you want to test the arguments, write a smaller number of tests using the
VerifyCS.Diagnostic
syntax to construct specific diagnostic forms.
- Unit tests for VB:
- Obvious positive and negative scenarios covered.
- If the implementation uses any syntax-specific code, then all scenarios must be covered.
- All scenarios covered.
- Unit tests for C#:
- Fixer implemented for C#, using the language-agnostic APIs if possible.
- If the fixer can be entirely implemented with language-agnostic APIs
(IOperation)
, then VB support is essentially free. - With a language-agnostic fixer, apply the attribute to indicate the fixer also applies to VB and add mainline VB tests.
- If language-specific APIs are needed to implement the fixer, the VB fixer is not required.
- Do not separate analyzer tests from code fix tests. If the analyzer has a code fix, then write all your tests as code fix tests.
- Calling
VerifyCodeFixAsync(source, source)
verifies that the analyzer either does not produce diagnostics, or produces diagnostics where no code fix is offered. - Calling
VerifyCodeFixAsync(source, fixedSource)
verifies the diagnostics (analyzer testing) and verifies that the code fix on source produces the expected output.
- Calling
- If the fixer can be entirely implemented with language-agnostic APIs
- Run the analyzer locally against
dotnet/runtime
anddotnet/roslyn-analyzers
(instructions).- Review each of the failures in those repositories and determine the course of action for each.
- Use the failures to discover nuance and guide the implementation details.
- Run the analyzer against
dotnet/roslyn
(instructions), and if feasible withdotnet/aspnetcore
repos. - Document for review: matching and non-matching scenarios, including any discovered nuance.
- All warnings and errors in these repos are addressed (to prevent build failures)
Info
level diagnostics do not need to be fully resolved or suppressed as they do not cause build failures
- Document for review: severity, default, categorization, numbering, titles, messages, and descriptions.
- Create the appropriate documentation for learn.microsoft.com within ONE WEEK, instructions available on Contribute docs for .NET code analysis rules to the .NET docs repository.
- PR merged into
dotnet/roslyn-analyzers
. - Validate the analyzer's behavior with end-to-end testing using the command-line and Visual Studio:
- Use
dotnet new console
anddotnet build
from the command-line, updating the code to introduce diagnostics and ensuring warnings/errors are reported at the command-line - Use Visual Studio to create a new project, introduce diagnostics, and observe the warnings/errors/info messages without invoking a build
- Use
- Navigate to the root of the Roslyn-analyzers repo and run these commands:
cd roslyn-analyzers
- Set
RUNTIMEPACKAGEVERSION
variable with a version value whose major part is equal to the major part of the version the runtime/roslyn-analyzers repo is using. Example:set RUNTIMEPACKAGEVERSION=8.0.0
build.cmd -ci /p:AssemblyVersion=%RUNTIMEPACKAGEVERSION% /p:AutoGenerateAssemblyVersion=false /p:OfficialBuild=true -c Release
cd artifacts\bin\Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.NetAnalyzers\Release\netstandard2.0
- Copy the two DLLs and replace the NuGet cache entries used by
dotnet/runtime
anddotnet/roslyn-analyzers
. They might be in"roslyn-analyzers/.packages/..."
(roslyn-analyzers) or"%USERPROFILE%/.nuget/packages/... "
(runtime). You can check the exact path by building something in runtime with/bl
and checking the binlog file (instructions for reading MSBuild binary logs are here).- Example:
copy /y *.dll %USERPROFILE%\.nuget\packages\Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.NetAnalyzers\%RUNTIMEPACKAGEVERSION%\analyzers\dotnet\cs
- Note that the
RUNTIMEPACKAGEVERSION
value is different for the runtime and roslyn-analyzers repos
- Example:
- Build the roslyn-analyzers with
build.cmd
. Now new analyzers will be used from updated NuGet packages and you would see the warnings if diagnostics found. - If failures found, review each of the failures and determine the course of action for each.
- Improve analyzer to reduce false positives. Fix valid warnings, and in very rare edge cases, suppress them, when you finish handling all diagnostics found, could raise a PR with those fixes.
- Make sure all failures addressed and corresponding PR(s) merged.
- Switch to the runtime repo.
- Add a row for your new analyzer ID with a value of
warning
to make sure it would warn for findings in the CodeAnalysis.src.globalconfig file. For example if you are authored a new analyzer with idCA1234
, add a row:dotnet_diagnostic.CA1234.severity = warning
- Build the runtime repo. Either do a complete build or build each repo separately (coreclr, libraries, mono).
- In the case of no failure, introduce an error somewhere to prove that the rule ran.
- Be careful about in which project you are producing an error. Choose an API not having references from other APIs, or else its dependent API's will fail.
- If failures found, repeat step 4-5 to evaluate and address all warnings.
- In case you want to debug some failures.
- Clone
dotnet/roslyn
and build it with this command:Build.cmd -restore -Configuration Release
- Build
dotnet/roslyn-analyzers
in debug mode:Build.cmd -Configuration Debug
- Run AnalyzerRunner from the Roslyn root directory to get the diagnostics.
.\artifacts\bin\AnalyzerRunner\Release\netcoreapp3.1\AnalyzerRunner.exe ..\roslyn-analyzers\artifacts\bin\Microsoft.NetCore.Analyzers.Package\Debug\netstandard2.0 .\Roslyn.sln /stats /concurrent /a AnalyzerNameToTest /log Output.txt
- Do not forget to change the value after the
/a
option with your testing analyzer name. The diagnostics reported by the analyzer will be listed in Output.txt.
- Copy over the debug build of analyzer assemblies on top of the NetAnalyzers NuGet package in your packages folder. (Instructions are the same as the step 1 and 2 of Testing against the Runtime repo)
- Start VS and open a project you want to debug
- Note the process ID for
ServiceHub.RoslynCodeAnalysisService.exe
corresponding to that VS instance- If you are using a
Visual Studio
version older than version16.8 Preview2
, then analyzers run indevenv.exe
, and you will need to attach that process instead. - Code fixes and analyzers run in different processes. If you want to debug the CodeFixProvider corresponding to the analyzer, attach
devenv.exe
instead.
- If you are using a
- Open another VS instance for
RoslynAnalyzers.sln
and set breakpoints in the analyzer solution where you want to debug - Attach to the above process ID with the RoslynAnalyzers debugger:
Debug -> Attach to Process...
- Start typing in the other project and the breakpoints should hit
- If breakpoints are not hitting then the RoslynAnalyzers.sln build might not be the same as the build you copied in step 1. Repeat the step again or check if you copied into the correct path.