How do I integrate StyleCop 4.7 with Visual Studio 2013?

Question

I really want to use StyleCop with my Visual Studio 2013, but unfortunately it won't work. I've installed the 4.7 version from the official site, checking all options, both VS Studio integration and MSBuild integration, following the precise instructions (download, install while VS applications are closed, then start VS) but it just won't show up in my Visual Studio 2013.

The StyleCop website says that it should be compatible with VS2013. It won't show up anything related to StyleCop under tools and it won't show up the 'Run StyleCop' action when I right-click my C# project. Already tried the repair option from the installation menu and even re-installed it. Haven't made any progress.

Can someone please help me with this? Maybe one has had experience with this before? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Open Visual studio Open Package Manager Console from TOOLS > LIBRARY PACKAGE MANAGER menu

Run the following command

install-package stylecop.msbuild

The above command will download the latest stable required dlls and files and integrate style cop with your project. Build your project and any stylecop errors will be shown in the warnings section.

If you don't find the package manager for some reason in the above menu, please refer this link for instructions on how to install http://surajdeshpande.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/how-to-install-a-nuget-package-in-visual-studio/

If you want your build to succeed only if all stylecop errors are fixed, you will need to make some changes to the project file to set a boolean to not treat stylecop errors as warnings.

Open the .csproj file for your project in notepad, and find the first PropertyGroup section within the file. Add a new tag to set the StyleCopTreatErrorsAsWarnings flag to false. For example:

<Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
    <Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">AnyCPU</Platform>
    <ProductVersion>8.0.50727</ProductVersion>
    <SchemaVersion>2.0</SchemaVersion>
    <ProjectGuid>{4B4DB6AA-A021-4F95-92B7-B88B5B360228}</ProjectGuid>
    <OutputType>WinExe</OutputType>
    <AppDesignerFolder>Properties</AppDesignerFolder>
    <RootNamespace>TestProject</RootNamespace>
    <AssemblyName>TestProject</AssemblyName>
    <StyleCopTreatErrorsAsWarnings>false</StyleCopTreatErrorsAsWarnings>
  </PropertyGroup>

A sample proj file content with <StyleCopTreatErrorsAsWarnings>false</StyleCopTreatErrorsAsWarnings> is shown above.

The build will be successful only after all sylecop errors are fixed.