Analyze code issues in design time

Design-time inspection features

To illustrate the design-time code inspection performed by ReSharper, consider the following code excerpt displayed in the editor:

In this example, we can see the following features of ReSharper code inspection:

1. A medium-priority code issue (in this case, a warning about a symbol name that does not match the naming style) is highlighted with a curly underline.

2. A low-priority code issue (in this case, a suggestion related to an unused public member) is greyed out.

3. Status indicator helps you to quickly see whether the current file has any code issues.

4. Code analysis hints make missing function returns, missing breaks in switch statements, and disposed resources easier to notice.

5. A fix popup that appears for non-imported types. Simply press Alt+Enter or click this popup to have ReSharper add the missing directive for all types in the file. For more information, see Import missing namespaces.

6. A marker corresponding to a warning is displayed on the marker bar.

7. A marker corresponding to an error is displayed on the marker bar.

8. Action indicator that appears to the left of the caret position if ReSharper has anything to suggest there.

9. High-priority code issues (in this case, errors related to an unresolved symbol and an incorrect return type) are highlighted with red text and a red curly underline.

10. A marker corresponding to a suggestion is displayed on the marker bar.

11. The action list, which can be opened by pressing Alt+Enter or clicking the action indicator, contains a list of quick-fixes for the issue at the caret.

12. If solution-wide analysis is enabled, ReSharper allows you to see even more code issues. In this example, it detects the unused public member and notifies you of errors in other files in your solution. Click the solution-wide analysis icon to explore the detected issues.

13. A short description of the issue at the caret appears in the status bar.

View problem description

For each code issue, ReSharper provides a short description that you can view in several ways:

• When the caret is at the highlighted code, check the bottom left corner of the status bar.

  

• When the caret is at the highlighted code, press Ctrl+K, I to view the problem description in a tooltip. Alternatively, hover the mouse over any highlighted code.

  

• Hover the mouse over code issue markers on the marker bar.

  

Navigate code issues

If the design-time code inspection is enabled, you can easily navigate between all issues (except those with the hint severity level) detected in the current file.

tip

Another way of navigating between code issues is to run code inspection in the desired scope and then study the issues in a dedicated tool window.

If you are only interested in errors in the current file, you can jump between them skipping issues with lower severity levels. Besides, if you enable the solution-wide analysis, you can jump between errors in the entire solution. Note that names of the navigation commands in the ReSharper | Inspect menu change if solution-wide analysis is on. Specifically, Next Error/Warning changes to Next Error/Warning in Solution and Previous Error/Warning becomes Previous Error/Warning in Solution.

tip

If you are not interested in some code issue, press Alt+Enter while you at the issue and select Inspection [name of inspection]. Then you can choose to suppress the corresponding code inspection for this issue or disable this inspection altogether.

When is design-time inspection disabled?

By default, design-time code inspection is enabled in all supported languages, but there are several situations where the analysis may not be available in the current file. You can recognize files where code inspection is disabled by the pause icon on the status indicator.

Design-time inspection is disabled globally

You can re-enable it by selecting Enable code analysis on the Code Inspection | Settings page of ReSharper options (Alt+R, O).

Code inspection is disabled in the current file

The current file is excluded from code analysis: it is listed explicitly, by its containing folder, or by the file mask in the Elements to skip section on the Code Inspection | Ignored Code page of ReSharper options (Alt+R, O).

You can press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+8 to toggle code analysis for the current file; this will also add it to or remove it from the Elements to skip list.

Design-time code inspection is disabled because the file is too large

To optimize performance and memory consumption, ReSharper automatically disables design-time inspection in files that are larger than 300 kilobytes. You can press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+8 in each of such files to enable code analysis.

File is not analyzed because it is not included in the solution

ReSharper needs to have a solution model to analyze symbols and references used in each file. Therefore, it cannot analyze files that are not included in the current solution .

This often happens with decompiled files and files from symbol servers that open as you navigate compiled code. You normally don't want to analyze such files because there is no way to make meaningful edits to them.

If, on the other hand, you have opened a file for editing by drag-n-dropping it from the system file manager or via File | Open, then you either need to open the solution where the file belongs or include the file in the current solution (right-click a target project and choose Add | Add Existing Item).

An internal error occurred when analyzing the file

In some rare cases, there might be internal errors that prevent ReSharper from analyzing a file. In such cases, clean the analysis indexes and restart the IDE: click Clear caches on the Environment | General page of ReSharper options (Alt+R, O).

Code inspection is partly disabled

If the file is listed explicitly, by its containing folder, or by the file mask as containing generated code, design-time code inspection will only report syntax and compiler errors in that file.

Inspection options menu

Besides suggested fixes, for each configurable code inspection as well as for custom inspections, ReSharper shows the Inspection [name of inspection] sub-menu in the actions list, with the following items:

• Disable once with comment

• Disable and restore with comment

• Configure inspection severity

• Find all issues of this type

• For the most controversial issues, there is the Why is ReSharper suggesting this? item that opens a help page with detailed description of the corresponding inspection.

Find similar issues

You can not only fix a highlighted issue with a quick-fix, but also find and investigate all similar issues (all issues detected with the same code inspection) in the whole solution or smaller scope.

tip

Alternatively to looking for similar issues, that is applying a single code inspection in the desired scope, you can apply the entire set of ReSharper's inspections in this scope.

Integration with Visual Studio code inspection controls

Starting from version 2015, Visual Studio comes with its own code analysis engine (Roslyn) and provides its own light bulbs feature to perform quick actions including refactoring and fixing errors.

Visual Studio's quick actions often perform the same fixes as ReSharper's quick-fixes, context action, or refactorings. Therefore, for some errors you may have two similar suggestions from Visual Studio and from ReSharper. In the illustration below, you can see two bulbs both suggesting to remove redundant using directives:

To avoid this, ReSharper provides the Hide Visual Studio light bulb option on the Environment | Editor | Visual Studio Features page of ReSharper options. This option is enabled by default, so you will not see the duplicated bulbs unless you disable it.

If Visual Studio Light Bulb is suppressed, Visual Studio actions can be integrated into ReSharper's action list by selecting the Merge Visual Studio light bulb actions into ReSharper action indicator checkbox. If it is selected, ReSharper does the following for each Visual Studio's quick action:

• If there is a similar ReSharper's quick-fix or context action, the Visual Studio's quick action is not displayed.

• If there are no similar ReSharper's action, the Visual Studio's action becomes available in ReSharper's action list. You can recognize Visual Studio's quick actions by the special icon .

If necessary, you can also disable Visual Studio's error highlighting in the editor, so that only code issues found by ReSharper are highlighted. To do so, select Hide Visual Studio squiggles on the Environment | Editor | Visual Studio Features page of ReSharper options.