Code Analysis Team Blog : Documentation

FxCop 1.36 Released!

brettwo — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:11:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce that we've released the next version of FxCop. This release has a number of changes since FxCop 1.36 Beta 2, including, but not limited to, the following:

Bug fixes that reduce noise, missing analysis and rule crashes.
New portability rule: Use Only API from Targeted Framework. This rule will fire when the target assembly taking a dependency on a new API only included in a later version or in a service pack.

New option for new portability rule for selecting target framework for analysis.

Set the target framework in the UI via Project -> Option -> Spelling & Analysis -> Target Framework
Set the target framework on the command-line via the /targetframeworkversion switch. e.g: /targetframeworkversion:v2.0, /targetframeworkversion:v3.0, or /targetframeworkversion:v3.5

Compared with FxCop 1.35, FxCop 1.36 Beta 2 had changes including, but not limited to, the following:

200+ bug fixes that reduce noise, missing analysis and rule crashes
Support for analyzing anonymous methods and lambda expressions
New option for skipping analysis over tool generated code

Turn this on in the UI via Project -> Options -> Spelling & Analysis -> Suppress analysis results against generated code
Turn this on on the command-line via the /ignoregeneratedcode switch.

Better support for C++/CLI and the Compact Framework
Language 'friendly' API names in the UI and resolutions (ie Visual Basic syntax if running over a Visual Basic binary)
New globalization, design and usage rules
Performance improvements that cut analysis by 2x and use half as much memory
Documentation that is now available on MSDN

There are also some other underlying changes that we will talk about in some future posts.

Download it, and tell us what you think. If you have any feedback, bug reports or any questions, feel free to head over to the Code Analysis forum and ask away.

Note: If you already have FxCop 1.36 Beta 2 installed, please uninstall it first before you install FxCop 1.36. Otherwise, you may see an error when you install FxCop 1.36 on top of FxCop 1.36 Beta 2.

If you accidentally install FxCop 1.36 without uninstalling FxCop 1.36 Beta 2, please go to Add/Remove program to uninstall FxCop 1.36, and reinstall FxCop 1.36.

[EDIT] Note: FxCop 1.36 RTM shipped with additional tracing turned on. This can make the FxCop output harder to read. To turn tracing off, edit the FxCop.exe.config or FxCopCmd.exe.config files in the FxCop install directory. Find the line that contains <add name="Trace" value="2" /> and change the "2" to "0".

What happened to the download and documentation of FxCop 1.35?

David M. Kean — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 02:45:00 GMT

Update: You can now download FxCop 1.35 directly from MSDN Code Gallery.

As you many you have well noticed, GotDotNet was officially retired last month now that the last of its functionality was superceded by MSDN Code Gallery. Unfortunately, at the same time, the FxCop team page, the download for FxCop 1.35 and the rule documentation was also removed.

We were told last year about the deprecation of GotDotNet and we had hoped that by now we would have had a new team site on MSDN, however, a variety of factors, some within our control and some beyond our control, prevented that from happening in time.

In the meantime, while we sort out new home for our beloved FxCop, here are a couple of workarounds:

To download FxCop

Upgrade to FxCop 1.36 Beta. This is one of our most stable beta's to-date; which is not surprising considering that some of the same bits also shipped in Visual Studio 2008. Go ahead, download FxCop 1.36 today - you won't be disappointed.
Download the Windows SDK. The Windows SDK includes the FxCop 1.35 setup. You might already have it installed if you have Visual Studio 2008, otherwise, download it. Either way, once installed, FxCop 1.35 setup can be found via Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Windows SDK [Version] -> Tools -> Install Microsoft FxCop.

To view the documentation

MSDN Library. Both the FxCop documentation and rule documentation are available on the MSDN Library.
Installed Help. FxCop 1.35 comes with a CHM (pronounced 'chum') containing FxCop and rule documentation. Albeit a little out-of-date when compared to the online version, access it via Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft FxCop 1.35 -> FxCop Documentation or via Help -> Using Microsoft FxCop inside FxCop.

Free 'Writing Quality Code' e-book (with information on both Native and Managed Code Analysis)

David M. Kean — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 19:00:00 GMT

Some of the local Australian developers have got together and written a e-book on Writing Quality Code with Visual Studio Team System. It contains chapters on both Native and Managed Code Analysis, as well unit and web testing, performance-tuning and custom check-in policies.

You can download the e-book from here (you will need to install the reader first).

These guys are the best in the business in both Australia and around the world, so make sure you check it out.

Free sample book chapter on Managed Code Analysis

David M. Kean — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:00:00 GMT

SearchVB.com is offering a free sample chapter on Managed Code Analysis from the book Professional Visual Studio Team System (co-written by fellow Team System colleague Noah Coad).

Chapter 8, Managed Code Analysis, focuses on how to use Team System's Static Code Analysis tool for C# or VB.NET code. This tool checks code for adherence to Microsoft's .NET Framework Design Guidelines. Static Code Analysis is available from both the Visual Studio IDE and from the command line, and the authors cover both instances. The chapter ends with hints for creating custom rules for the code analysis tool.

Great stuff!

And now back to your regularly scheduled FxCop documentation...

David M. Kean — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 04:00:00 GMT

As a lot of you noticed, just before Christmas all of our rule documentation links broke from within FxCop. Unfortunately, due to the timing (and with the required people on holidays), we could not get this fixed as soon as we had hoped.

However, as of early this week, the documentation should be back up and running. We apologise profusely and hope that it did not cause you too much of an inconvenience.

To those that thought we were cutting FxCop, I can assure you that the standalone will be sticking around in the future. :)

However, there is good news out of this; the MSDN Wiki Team have moved the MSDN wiki feature across to the main MSDN2 Library. The even better news, is that now Visual Studio users (if they have enabled live MSDN) can now view, edit and add these community blocks from within their Visual Studio help viewer. And with 33% of our rule topics already with at least 1 community content block, check it out!

How would you rate the usefulness of this content? [David Kean]

David M. Kean — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 08:58:00 GMT

At Microsoft, we have a number of internal tools and websites that help improve our interaction with the community. One such site at our disposal is a tool that helps us browse feedback provided about MSDN Library topics. This feedback, which at times can be very telling, is provided via a rating scale and comments text box at the bottom of each page under the heading How would you rate the usefulness of this content?.

Earlier this week I was using this tool to browse through my team's topics trying to gleam how customers rated our documentation, when I came across one particular topic that stood out. This topic, which was the description of the rule Move pinvokes to native methods class, had a high number of comments (over 10) with a particularly low average rating (1.75 out of 9). After reading through the comments it was blatantly obviously as to why it was rated so low; it was missing a code sample that actually showed how to actually fix the violation. One particular commentator summed it up:

I already have an example of the what violates the rule in my own code! How about an example of the fix instead?

After reading through the topic, I wholeheartly agree and I've filed a bug internally for User Education (UE) to fix this. In the meantime however, if you head over on the sister MSDN Wiki site (which the standalone FxCop now links to), I've added a content block that greatly expands on the topic, showing what the topic is missing; the correct way to fix this violation.

In conclusion, if you come across a topic that is lacking in, or contains, wrong information, please spend 30 seconds filling out the comments at the bottom of the page - it can certainly help us to determine what topics need work.

FxCop 1.35 rule documentation now on MSDN Wiki [David Kean]

David M. Kean — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 03:35:00 GMT

One thing you might notice from today when you fire up FxCop 1.35, is that the rule URLs are now redirecting to the new MSDN Library Wiki as opposed to the old docs on GotDotNet.

To see this in action, try the following:

Open FxCop 1.35
Choose Windows -> Rules
Expand the Naming Rules node and double-click Abstract types should not have constructors
Choose the Support tab and click the URL link

The cool thing about this, is, that you can now supplement the existing docs by adding your own comments to the bottom of the topics. For example, if you have a look at the bottom of the Abstract types should not have constructors topic, you will see that I've added a Visual Basic example. While not a replacement for real documentation written by Microsoft's Programming Writers, adding your own comments helps us find out what topics need work, better samples or what topics customers are struggling with.

Note: You may notice that some topics still redirect to the old topics; this is by-design. Currently only rules that ship with Visual Studio Code Analysis have documentation on MSDN; over the coming months this will change as we work to move all the rules documentation over and document the new rules for FxCop 1.35.

TIP: Get more information about a rule/warning within Visual Studio [David Kean]

David M. Kean — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 08:53:00 GMT

Did you know you can get more information about a particular rule/warning within Visual Studio; including its description, information on how to fix it, whether or not it is considered a breaking change, when or when not to suppress it and code samples?

To do this for a particular warning in the Error List:

Right-click the warning and choose Show Error Help

-or-

Select the warning and press F1

To do this for a particular rule:

In Solution Explorer, right-click your project and choose Properties
In the Project Properties window, choose the Code Analysis tab
Expand one of the category nodes, select a rule node and press F1

This information is updated regularly, so you can make sure the Help viewer always displays the most update-to-date information by changing it so that it tries the online MSDN Library version before the local:

Choose Tools -> Options
In the Options dialog, expand to and select the Environment -> Help -> Online node
Under When loading Help content, choose Try online first, then local and click OK