Code Analysis for Managed Code feature in Visual Studio Team System

As I already mentioned in one of my previous posts, I am starting a new project based on ASP.NET 2.0 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. I had the chance to acquaint with these two and I can't hinder my astonishment and gratitude - really Microsoft has done great job with these. And to continue the conversion in the same direction, we are going to use Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) as our primary IDE along with its abundant features for project collaboration and control. Now I am going to give you a short overview of one the greatest features that VSTS has, and in my future posts I hope that I will give you more food for you soul :-)

Well, the feature I want to discuss now, is Code Analysis. Here is a short overview of what it actually is all about:

"Code analysis for managed code tool analyzes managed assemblies and reports information about the assemblies, such as violations of the programming and design rules set forth in the Microsoft .NET Framework Design Guidelines. "

Simple as that! Now, what it has to do with VSTS is that it is fully integrated into it and can be part of the build process, code check-in process and/or Team System build process.

The best way to understand this feature and see how powerful it is, I suggest playing with it. In order to enable Compile time Code analysis feature, just go your solution properties in VSTS, choose "Build" section and there select "Enable Code Analysis" checkbox. Then rebuild it and in the Output window you will see the results from the additional build step performed regarding code analysis.

What I personally found as very neat feature is the code analysis check-in feature - that is whenever you try to checkin source code in the team repository, your code will be verified whether it conforms to Microsoft guidelines for quality code. Here is a link, where you can find additional information about this feature (link).

I still don't know whether the set of rules for code analysis is extensible - if it is using FxCop underneath, I guess that will be as easy as a breeze.