Code analysis | JetBrains Rider Documentation

Code inspections

In addition to hundreds of code inspections that check general aspects of C++ code, there are some inspections that are specific to Unreal Engine projects.

UnrealHeaderTool (2 inspections)

Inspection	Default severity
UnrealHeaderTool errors	Error
UnrealHeaderTool warnings	Warning

Unreal Engine (20 inspections)

Inspections in this category are specific to Unreal Engine projects.

Inspection	Default severity
Action with this name does not exist	Warning
Axis with this name does not exist	Warning
BlueprintCallable function can be made const	Hint
BlueprintCallable function can be made static	Hint
BlueprintCallable function is never used in Blueprint or C++ code	Warning
BlueprintImplementableEvent function is not implemented in any blueprint	Warning
C/C++ standard library headers not found	Error
Inconsistent Unreal Engine Naming	Hint
Inconsistent Unreal Engine UCLASS Naming	Error
Method bound to delegate is not marked with UFUNCTION macro	Warning
Missing call to a function from the Super class	Warning
Non-UProperty object member can be destroyed during garbage collection, resulting in a stale pointer	Warning
Objects stored in non-uproperty member can be destroyed during garbage collection, resulting in stale pointers	Warning
Specified version of the engine project is not found	Error
Struct is missing a member required by TStructOpsTypeTraits	Error
UFUNCTION macro call has no effect	Warning
Unreal Engine source file without predefined Unreal macros	Warning
Unreal Engine version file does not exist	Error
UPROPERTY macro call has no effect	Warning
Use of a class that has not been declared previously	Hint

UnrealHeaderTool integration

UnrealHeaderTool is a parsing and code-generation tool for Unreal Engine. In the Unreal Engine code compilation workflow, the tool parses the C++ header files, looking for Unreal related macros and metadata, and uses this to generate additional code to support the UObject system, such as reflection and networking.

JetBrains Rider provides seamless integration with UnrealHeaderTool: the first time you build the Unreal Engine project, JetBrains Rider finds the UnrealHeaderTool used for the code compilation and can then run the tool in the background as a separate process to check the file you are editing and show the same errors and warnings that you would normally see at compile time. The code analysis results are displayed right in the editor, just like other JetBrains Rider's inspections.

JetBrains Rider runs UnrealHeaderTool only on the file that is currently open, and the process is optimized to have a minimal impact on overall performance.

Watch this video for the integrated UnrealHeaderTool inspections in action:

UnrealHeaderTool inspections

UnrealHeaderTool can detect lots of different issues with your code, such as using a specific meta tag without the required reflection specifier, using the GENERATED_BODY macro in a private scope, when an invalid entity is exposed to a blueprint, and a lot more. Here are some examples:

Missing reflection specifiers on a UFUNCTION.
Using the UFUNCTION macro inside a struct.
Invalid BlueprintType enum base.

To distinguish between UnrealHeaderTool checks and JetBrains Rider’s inspections, you can look at the name of the check in square brackets, appended to the inspection message.

Configuring UnrealHeaderTool inspections

All UnrealHeaderTool inspections have corresponding configurable severity levels, which can be adjusted to meet your needs.

As with the built-in inspections, you can use the inspection context menu to quickly change the severity of an UnrealHeaderTool check, suppress it via a comment (in specific scope or globally), or find and investigate all similar issues.