FxCop, exclude a rule from an assembly (but use it for the other assemblies)

Question

Hi!

I would like to exclude CA1822:MarkMembersAsStatic from the CoreTest assembly as the NUnit test methods cannot be converted to static methods as NUnit won´t execute them if I do. In the other assemblies I would like to have this rule as I have found it valuable.

If it is possible I do not like to add a SuppressMessage to each test methods, as I have a lot of them and it just clutters up the file.

This is the FxCop rule XML-file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FxCopProject Version="1.35" Name="Foo, Release">
 <ProjectOptions>
  <SharedProject>True</SharedProject>
  <Stylesheet Apply="False">http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/fxcop//xsl/1.35/FxCopReport.xsl&lt;/Stylesheet&gt;
  <SaveMessages>
   <Project Status="None" NewOnly="False" />
   <Report Status="Active" NewOnly="False" />
  </SaveMessages>
  <ProjectFile Compress="True" DefaultTargetCheck="True" DefaultRuleCheck="True" SaveByRuleGroup="" Deterministic="True" />
  <EnableMultithreadedLoad>True</EnableMultithreadedLoad>
  <EnableMultithreadedAnalysis>True</EnableMultithreadedAnalysis>
  <SourceLookup>True</SourceLookup>
  <AnalysisExceptionsThreshold>10</AnalysisExceptionsThreshold>
  <RuleExceptionsThreshold>1</RuleExceptionsThreshold>
  <Spelling Locale="en-us" />
  <VersionAware>False</VersionAware>
  <OverrideRuleVisibilities>False</OverrideRuleVisibilities>
  <CustomDictionaries SearchFxCopDir="True" SearchUserProfile="True" SearchProjectDir="True" />
  <SearchGlobalAssemblyCache>False</SearchGlobalAssemblyCache>
  <DeadlockDetectionTimeout>120</DeadlockDetectionTimeout>
 </ProjectOptions>
 <Targets>
  <AssemblyReferenceDirectories>
   <Directory>$(ProjectDir)/Library/EPiServer CMS/5.2.375.7/</Directory>
   <Directory>$(ProjectDir)/Foo.Plugin/bin/Release/</Directory>
  </AssemblyReferenceDirectories>
  <Target Name="$(ProjectDir)/Foo.Core/bin/Release/Foo.Core.dll" Analyze="True" AnalyzeAllChildren="True" />
  <Target Name="$(ProjectDir)/Foo.CoreTest/bin/Release/Foo.CoreTest.dll" Analyze="True" AnalyzeAllChildren="True" />
  <Target Name="$(ProjectDir)/Foo.Example/bin/Foo.Example.dll" Analyze="True" AnalyzeAllChildren="True" />
  <Target Name="$(ProjectDir)/Foo.Web.WebForms/bin/Release/Foo.Web.WebForms.dll" Analyze="True" AnalyzeAllChildren="True" />
 </Targets>
 <Rules>
  <RuleFiles>
   <RuleFile Name="$(FxCopDir)\Rules\DesignRules.dll" Enabled="True" AllRulesEnabled="True" />
   <RuleFile Name="$(FxCopDir)\Rules\GlobalizationRules.dll" Enabled="True" AllRulesEnabled="False">
    <Rule Name="AvoidDuplicateAccelerators" Enabled="True" />
    <Rule Name="DoNotHardcodeLocaleSpecificStrings" Enabled="True" />
    <Rule Name="SetLocaleForDataTypes" Enabled="True" />
    <Rule Name="SpecifyCultureInfo" Enabled="True" />
    <Rule Name="SpecifyIFormatProvider" Enabled="True" />
    <Rule Name="SpecifyMessageBoxOptions" Enabled="True" />
   </RuleFile>
   <RuleFile Name="$(FxCopDir)\Rules\InteroperabilityRules.dll" Enabled="True" AllRulesEnabled="True" />
   <RuleFile Name="$(FxCopDir)\Rules\MobilityRules.dll" Enabled="True" AllRulesEnabled="True" />
   <RuleFile Name="$(FxCopDir)\Rules\NamingRules.dll" Enabled="True" AllRulesEnabled="True" />
   <RuleFile Name="$(FxCopDir)\Rules\PerformanceRules.dll" Enabled="True" AllRulesEnabled="True" />
   <RuleFile Name="$(FxCopDir)\Rules\PortabilityRules.dll" Enabled="True" AllRulesEnabled="True" />
   <RuleFile Name="$(FxCopDir)\Rules\SecurityRules.dll" Enabled="True" AllRulesEnabled="True" />
   <RuleFile Name="$(FxCopDir)\Rules\UsageRules.dll" Enabled="True" AllRulesEnabled="True" />
  </RuleFiles>
  <Groups />
  <Settings />
 </Rules>
 <FxCopReport Version="1.35" />
</FxCopProject>

Any ideas on how this can be done in the most convenient way?

Answer 1

There's no way to use separate rule sets within a single FxCop run. For dealing with the CA1822 test method issue, I usually create two separate FxCop projects: one that includes CA1822 for normal assemblies, and one that excludes CA1822 for test assemblies.

If you're using the code analysis feature integrated into some of the "developer" team edition of Visual Studio, you can apply a different rule set to each assembly. This is supported because the tool ends up running fxcopcmd.exe seperately for each assembly, not because it uses some more complex configuration to support multiple rule sets within a single run.