Announcements

• What's new in Code Analysis for Visual Studio 2010

  Duke KamstraMicrosoft EmployeeMonday, March 22, 2010 4:35 PM
  Please see our blog for a description of the new Code Analysis functionality available in Visual Studio 2010: http://blogs.msdn.com/codeanalysis/archive/2010/03/22/what-s-new-in-code-analysis-for-visual-studio-2010.aspx

• FxCop Version 10.0 is available

  Duke KamstraMicrosoft EmployeeMonday, July 26, 2010 4:30 PM

  Version 10.0 of FxCop is the version that ships with Visual Studio 2010 Premium. FxCop 10.0 is part of Version 7.1 of the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4.

  Instructions

  • Download the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4 Version 7.1
  • Using elevated privileges execute FxCopSetup.exe from the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin\FXCop folder.

  If you require FxCop 1.36 please download and install the Windows SDK version 7.0.

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

  Duke KamstraMicrosoft EmployeeThursday, February 18, 2010 6:45 PM

  Following is a collection of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) regarding PreFAST, FxCop, Managed Code Analysis and Code Metrics.

  Visual Studio 2010 Rule Sets

  Question:  How do I ensure that the same code analysis rule set is used for all the projects developed by my team(s)?

  Answer:    See JB Browns blog post on this topic.

  Rule Behavior

  Question:  Why does FxCop generate violations against itself?

  Answer:    Answered on the FxCop blog.

  Question:  Why do some sources recommend extending ApplicationException while FxCop does not?

  Answer:    Answered on the FxCop blog.

  Question:  Why does FxCop ignore my in-code (SuppressMessageAttribute) suppressions?

  Answer:    Answered on the FxCop blog.

  Question:  Why does DoNotExposeGenericLists recommend that I expose Collection<T> instead of List<T>?

  Answer:    Answered on the FxCop blog.

  Question:  How do I indicate to DoNotDeclareReadOnlyMutableReferenceTypes that a type is immutable?

  Answer:    Answered on the FxCop blog.

  Custom Rule Development

  Question: How do I integrate my custom FxCop rules into Visual Studio 2010?

  Answer: Answered on the FxCop blog. 

  Question:  Where is the official FxCop custom rules SDK?

  Answer:    There is currently no official custom rules SDK developed by Microsoft. The primary reason is that we are currently rewriting key components of the FxCop metadata reader and data flow analysis engine. This work guarantees that rules written today will need to be modified or entirely re-written in the future. Rules developers who have been working in FxCop for the past few years can attest to the fact that every release has involved some churn in the custom rules API. Each release readme contains detailed information about porting existing rules to the latest architecture.

  As soon as the FxCop metadata and other relevant API stabilize sufficiently, we will develop an official FxCop custom rules SDK with samples demonstrating common patterns written in several languages. Until then, there are several resources available to custom rules developers:

  ·     This forum. Post your rules development questions here.

  ·     Rules samples uploaded to the MSDN Code Gallery. Search for 'FxCop'.

  ·     Rules samples developed externally. Search the web for 'fxcop' and 'rules'

  ·     Visit the custom rules category on the FxCop blog

  Question:  How do I integrate custom rules with Visual Studio?

  Answer:    Answered on the FxCop blog.

  Question:  How do I access the locals for a method?

  Answer:    Answered on the FxCop blog.