AnalyzeCodeOnTheFly.md

title
Analyze Code on the Fly

What you should know beforehand:

• Component model

Examples (?):

• BadWordNamingAnalyzer.cs
• BadWordNamingWarning.cs

Background code analysis is one of the most popular plugins tasks. The analysis is performed by daemons created using a special IDaemonStage interface. Nevertheless, the easiest way to perform code analysis is to employ the ElementProblemAnalyzer<T> class: it creates the corresponding daemon and daemon stage by itself.

The analysis could be divided into two steps:

1. Actually, the analysis of code: performed by ElementProblemAnalyzer<T>, where T is the class of code elements you want to analyze.
2. Problematic code highlighting: performed by a class that implements the IHighlighting interface.

As an example, let's create a code analyzer that checks all variable declarations on whether they contain the word "Crap" (in Create a Quick-Fix, we implement a quick-fix that suggests to replace the "Crap" occurrence with "BadWord").

Problem Analyzer

[ElementProblemAnalyzer(typeof(IVariableDeclaration), HighlightingTypes =
    new[] {typeof(BadWordNamingWarning)})]
public class BadWordNamingAnalyzer : ElementProblemAnalyzer<IVariableDeclaration>
{
    protected override void Run(IVariableDeclaration element, ElementProblemAnalyzerData data,
        IHighlightingConsumer consumer)
    {
        var nodeText = element.DeclaredName.ToLower();            
 
        if (!nodeText.Contains("crap"))
            return;
 
        consumer.AddHighlighting(new BadWordNamingWarning(element, element.NameIdentifier.GetDocumentRange()));
    }
}

Notes

• Problem analyzer inherits from ElementProblemAnalyzer<IVariableDeclaration> where IVariableDeclaration is the type of the analyzed code element.
• Problem analyzer must be marked with the ElementProblemAnalyzer attribute:
  • typeof(IVariableDeclaration) is the type of the analyzed code element.
  • HighlightingTypes is the array of classes that should provide highlighting for the problem.
• The Run method of the analyzer is executed when an element of the IVariableDeclaration is found. Here:
  • element is the found code element.
  • ElementProblemAnalyzerData data is a context data provider that gives you access to some useful components like settings store.
  • IHighlightingConsumer consumer is used to communicate with the code highlighter.
• consumer.AddHighlighting() highlights the problematic part of the code.

Highlighting

[StaticSeverityHighlighting(Severity.WARNING, HighlightingGroupIds.GutterMarksGroup)]
public class BadWordNamingWarning : IHighlighting
{
    private readonly DocumentRange _documentRange;
    public readonly IVariableDeclaration VariableDeclaration;
     
    public BadWordNamingWarning(IVariableDeclaration variableDeclaration, DocumentRange documentRange)
    {
        VariableDeclaration = variableDeclaration;
        _documentRange = documentRange;
    }
 
    public bool IsValid()
    {
        return VariableDeclaration.IsValid();
    }
 
    public DocumentRange CalculateRange()
    {
        return _documentRange;
    }
 
    public string ToolTip => "The name contains a bad word";
    public string ErrorStripeToolTip { get; }
}

Notes

• The class responsible for code highlighting must implement the IHighlighting interface.
• The class must be also marked with either the ConfigurableSeverityHighlighting attribute (used for complex cases, e.g. when you need to temporarily disable highlighting depending on some conditions) or StaticSeverityHighlighting (is always shown):
  • Severity.WARNING: the severity of the highlighting. Could be info, warning, error, etc.
  • HighlightingGroupIds.GutterMarksGroup: highlighting group. It could be e.g. a compiler warning, best practice, code style issue, etc.
• IsValid checks whether the highlighting is applicable.
• CalculateRange returns the range of the highlighting in the document.
• The ToolTip property is responsible for the tooltip that is shown when the mouse is hold over the highlighted element.