Configuring Warnings in Visual Basic
The Visual Basic compiler includes a set of warnings about code that may cause run-time errors. You can use that information to write cleaner, faster, better code with fewer bugs. For example, the compiler will produce a warning when the user attempts to invoke a member of an unassigned object variable, return from a function without setting the return value, or execute a Try block with errors in the logic to catch exceptions.
Sometimes the compiler provides extra logic on the user's behalf so that the user can focus on the task at hand, rather than on anticipating possible errors. In previous versions of Visual Basic, Option Strict was used to limit the additional logic that the Visual Basic compiler provides. Configuring warnings allows you to limit this logic in a more granular way, at the level of the individual warnings.
You may want to customize your project and turn off some warnings not pertinent to your application while turning other warnings into errors. This page explains how to turn individual warnings on and off.
There are two different ways to configure warnings: you can configure them using the Project Designer, or you can use the /warnaserror and /nowarn compiler options.
The Compile tab of the Project Designer page allows you to turn warnings on and off. Select the Disable All Warnings check box to disable all warnings; select the Treat All Warnings as Errors to treat all warnings as errors. Some individual warnings can be toggled as error or warning as desired in the displayed table.
When Option Strict is set to Off, Option Strict related warnings cannot be treated independently of each other. When Option Strict is set to On, the associated warnings are treated as errors, no matter what their status is. When Option Strict is set to Custom by specifying /optionstrict:custom in the command line compiler, Option Strict warnings can be toggled on or off independently.
The /warnaserror command-line option of the compiler can also be used to specify whether warnings are treated as errors. You can add a comma delimited list to this option to specify which warnings should be treated as errors or warnings by using + or -. The following table details the possible options.
|
Command-line option |
Specifies |
|---|---|
|
/warnaserror+ |
Treat all warnings as errors |
|
/warnsaserror- |
Do not treat as warnings as errors. This is the default. |
|
/warnaserror+:<warning list > |
Treat specific warnings as errors, listed by their error ID number in a comma delimited list r. |
|
/warnaserror-:<warning list> |
Do not treat specific warnings as errors, listed by their error ID number in a comma delimited list. |
|
/nowarn |
Do not report warnings. |
|
/nowarn:<warning list> |
Do not report specified warnings, listed by their error ID number in a comma delimited list. |
The warning list contains the error ID numbers of the warnings that should be treated as errors, which can be used with the command-line options to turn specific warnings on or off. If the warning list contains an invalid number, an error is reported.
This table of examples of command line arguments describes what each argument does.
|
Argument |
Description |
|---|---|
|
vbc /warnaserror |
Specifies that all warnings should be treated as errors. |
|
vbc /warnaserror:42024 |
Specifies that warning 42024 should be treated as an error. |
|
vbc /warnaserror:42024,42025 |
Specifies that warnings 42024 and 42025 should be treated as errors. |
|
vbc /nowarn |
Specifies that no warnings should be reported. |
|
vbc /nowarn:42024 |
Specifies that warning 42024 should not be reported. |
|
vbc /nowarn:42024,42025 |
Specifies that warnings 42024 and 42025 should not be reported. |
Following is a list of warnings that you might want to treat as errors.
Generated when a variable, function, or property declaration lacking an As clause would have created an error with Option Strict On. Variables that do not have a type assigned to them are assumed to be type Object. Default for new projects is on.
ID: 42020 (variable declaration), 42021 (function declaration), and 42022 (property declaration).
