Using Code Analysis with Visual Studio 2010 to Improve Code Quality

The Code Analysis feature of Visual Studio performs static code analysis on code to help developers identify potential design, globalization, interoperability, performance, security, and a host of other categories of potential problems. In Visual Studio 2010, improvements have been made to the code analysis engine itself, as well as ability to configure rule sets rather than picking and choosing from one flat list of rules. In this lab, you will be introduced to Code Analysis, how to configure rules sets to use, and finally how to suppress specific rules at a project and source code level.

Overview

The Code Analysis feature of Visual Studio performs static code analysis on code to help developers identify potential design, globalization, interoperability, performance, security, and a host of other categories of potential problems. In Visual Studio 2010, improvements have been made to the code analysis engine itself, as well as ability to configure rule sets rather than picking and choosing from one flat list of rules. Code Analysis can be run manually at any time from within the Visual Studio IDE, or even setup to automatically run as part of a Team Build or check-in policy for TFS.

In this lab, you will be introduced to Code Analysis, how to configure rules sets to use, and finally how to suppress specific rules at a project and source code level.

System Requirements

In order to complete this lab you will need the Visual Studio 2010 virtual machine provided by Microsoft. For more information on acquiring and using this virtual machine, please see this blog post.

Exercises

This Hands-On Lab comprises the following exercises:

1. Introduction to Code Analysis
2. Suppressing Code Analysis Warnings

Estimated time to complete this lab: 30 minutes.

Next Step

Exercise 1: Introduction to Code Analysis