Running FxCop analyzers from command line

Question

I'm trying to use the new FxCop analyzers, but they're only available as NuGet packages or as VSIX extensions. I'd like to be able to run them directly, either from inside a C# program or from the command line. Anyone have any advice? Even general info on where you can find the executables for NuGet or VSIX would help.

(I know about fxcopcmd.exe, but that's the legacy version, and it works only on built .exes or .dlls. If at all possible, I need something that works before building.)

Answer 1

Answering my own question in case anyone else has to deal with this. I found a solution, but fair warning, it's not pretty.

• I took an example C# solution from Github, loaded it up in Visual Studio, and used NuGet to install the FxCop analyzers. This installed the analyzers, and changed the solution's .csproj files to reference them. In my case, I found a copy of the analyzers in C:\users\myname.nuget\packages.
• I compared the modified .csproj files to the originals, to see what changes had been made during installation. I recommend anyone following along make this comparison themselves, but in my case, the changes were:
  • Five Import elements at the top referencing various .props files.
  • An empty NuGetPackageImportStamp element.
  • Two new ItemGroups near the bottom, the first containing a single element named "None", the second containing various Analyzer elements referencing .dlls.
  • A new Target to ensure that the .props files actually existed.
• I wrote a C# program that took an arbitrary solution, found all the .csproj files inside, and manually added those new XML elements to them. I skipped the one-element ItemGroup and the Target without any problems.

Ideally you would then (from inside the same C# program) call msbuild on the .sln file, save every output line matching the regex "): warning CA\d\d\d\d: " (i.e. the warnings that FxCop generated), and restore the original .csproj files. I did that all manually. Here's the code for the XML manipulation, though:

static void addAnalyzersToCsProj(string file)
    {
        string[] packages = new string[]
        {
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.codeanalysis.fxcopanalyzers\3.0.0\build\Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.FxCopAnalyzers.props",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.codeanalysis.versioncheckanalyzer\3.0.0\build\Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.VersionCheckAnalyzer.props",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.codequality.analyzers\3.0.0\build\Microsoft.CodeQuality.Analyzers.props",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.netcore.analyzers\3.0.0\build\Microsoft.NetCore.Analyzers.props",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.netframework.analyzers\3.0.0\build\Microsoft.NetFramework.Analyzers.props",
        };
        var root = XElement.Load(file);
        var ns = "";
        for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++)
        {
            XElement packageImport = new XElement(ns+"Import");
            packageImport.SetAttributeValue("Project", packages[i]);
            string condition = "Exists('" + packages[i] + "')";
            packageImport.SetAttributeValue("Condition", condition);
            root.AddFirst(packageImport);
        }

        var propertyGroup = root.Descendants(ns + "PropertyGroup").First();
        var stamp = new XElement(ns+"NuGetPackageImportStamp", "");
        propertyGroup.Elements().Last().AddAfterSelf(stamp);

        var newGroup = new XElement(ns+"ItemGroup");
        // do we need to include the "None Include="packages.config"" thing?
        string[] libraries = new string[]
        {
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.codeanalysis.versioncheckanalyzer\3.0.0\analyzers\dotnet\cs\Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.VersionCheckAnalyzer.resources.dll",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.codeanalysis.versioncheckanalyzer\3.0.0\analyzers\dotnet\Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.VersionCheckAnalyzer.dll",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.codequality.analyzers\3.0.0\analyzers\dotnet\cs\Humanizer.dll",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.codequality.analyzers\3.0.0\analyzers\dotnet\cs\Microsoft.CodeQuality.Analyzers.dll",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.codequality.analyzers\3.0.0\analyzers\dotnet\cs\Microsoft.CodeQuality.CSharp.Analyzers.dll",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.netcore.analyzers\3.0.0\analyzers\dotnet\cs\Microsoft.NetCore.Analyzers.dll",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.netcore.analyzers\3.0.0\analyzers\dotnet\cs\Microsoft.NetCore.CSharp.Analyzers.dll",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.netframework.analyzers\3.0.0\analyzers\dotnet\cs\Microsoft.NetFramework.Analyzers.dll",
            @"C:\users\myname\.nuget\packages\microsoft.netframework.analyzers\3.0.0\analyzers\dotnet\cs\Microsoft.NetFramework.CSharp.Analyzers.dll",
        };
        foreach (string lib in libraries)
        {
            XElement analyzer = new XElement(ns+"Analyzer");
            analyzer.SetAttributeValue("Include", lib);
            newGroup.AddFirst(analyzer);
        }
        Console.WriteLine(root.Elements().Last().ToString());
        root.Elements().Last().AddAfterSelf(newGroup);
        root.Save(file, SaveOptions.None);
        // and do we need to include the error checking target?
    }

As far as I can tell, it works, though I have no idea what would happen if you tried to do it on a solution that already has the analyzers installed normally.

Running the FxCop analyzers through msbuild seems inefficient, but I haven't found a better way to do it. They look like they're built to only work within a compiler. I hope I'm wrong, and I would still appreciate any advice on how to run the analyzers automatically without having to build the whole project.