Using the Polyspace as You Code Views in Visual Studio Code

The Polyspace® as You Code™ extension has a dedicated perspective in Visual Studio Code that groups all the relevant Polyspace views.

Click the Polyspace button Gray Polyspace icon in the Visual Studio Code sidebar to open the Polyspace sidebar. The Polyspace as You Code sidebar displays information about your configuration, analysis, and results in the following views:

  • Configuration

  • Quality Monitoring

  • Headers

  • Error List

  • Result Details

  • Baseline

Configuration View

The Configuration view shows your current Analysis Options settings and the status of the generated build options file, if applicable.

In this view, you can:

Quality Monitoring View

The Quality Monitoring view displays each file that you have selected for analysis in a list along with the status of the analysis, the number of results for each file, and which baselines are associated with the file.

You can manually add a file to the Quality Monitoring list or have Polyspace automatically add a file to the Quality Monitoring list when you save a file.

  • To add a file manually, right-click the file in the editor or in the Explorer view and select Add file to the Polyspace Quality Monitoring list.

  • To add files automatically, click the settings icon icon to open the Settings window and then select the checkbox for Analysis Options: Add To Quality Monitoring On Save. See Configure Analysis Behavior on Save.

To manually start an analysis, hover over a file in the Quality Monitoring list and select the Run Polyspace Analysis icon. You can also start a sequential file-by-file analysis of all files in the Quality Monitoring list by clicking the icon.

If you remove a file from the Quality Monitoring view after you have run an analysis on that file, Polyspace removes the results associated with that file as well as all the included files. If you add the removed file back to the Quality Monitoring view, no results are associated with the file until you run a new analysis.

Hover over a file in the Quality Monitoring list to view which local or Polyspace Access baselines are associated with that file. If a Polyspace Access baseline is associated with the file, the name of the Polyspace Access project the baseline is from is displayed.

Headers view

When you analyze a file, Polyspace also analyzes the header files that are included by the file and that are in the same folder as the file. If Polyspace reports results in a header file, you see an H next to the analyzed file in the Quality Monitoring view. Click the analyzed file in the Quality Monitoring view to display all associated analyzed header files in Headers view.

Polyspace as You Code Headers view in VSCode

Header files show in the list only if they contain results. Click the file in the Headers view to open its results in the Problems view.

Problems View

The Problems view shows the all the analysis results, listed one result per line. Each line shows additional information, such as:

  • The name of the defect or coding rule, family, and description

  • Name of the file containing the result

  • Review information

The results are grouped by file. Use the filters in the right side corner of the Problems view to narrow your review focus. You can change the Problems view to show results in a tree format or a table format. If a message is too long, right-click the message and select Copy Message to copy the message to your system clipboard for pasting into any text editor.

Problems view in Visual Studio Code

The results that show in the Problems view represent the results for the files that you select in the Quality Monitoring view. The number of results in the Problems view can change and does not represent results for all analyzed files.

When you select a file in the Quality Monitoring view, in the Problems view you see results from:

  • Each file listed in the Quality Monitoring view including the selected file.

  • The header files of the file you select in the Quality Monitoring view.

If you select a different file in the Quality Monitoring view:

  • Polyspace removes the previously selected file's header file results from the Problems view.

  • The newly selected file's header file results show in the Problems view.

Result Details View

When you select a result in the Problems view or in the editor, the Result Details view shows additional information about the result. This includes the rule definition of the violation, the location of the violation in your code, any traceback information when available, and the review information imported from the baseline. If you select multiple lines of code, the Result Details view shows the result details for all the results in the selection.

Select a result and click the Open documentation icon to view contextual help about that result.

To lock the view and keep it from updating when you browse through results in the source code or the Problems view, click the Unlocked icon icon in the upper right. To unlock the view, click locked icon.

Baseline View

The Baseline view shows any local baselines and any baselines you have downloaded from Polyspace Access™ results.

Visual Studio Code baseline view

In this view, you can:

  • Click the filter icon to enable or disable filtering the Problems view to show only results that are new when compared to a baseline.

  • Click the icon on the Local baselines line to create a local baseline for all files currently in the quality monitoring list. Click the Update local baseline icon to update all local baselines or the baseline close button icon to remove a local baseline.

  • Click settings icon to open and edit the Polyspace Access baseline settings.

  • Click Download baseline to download or update your Polyspace Access baselines.

  • Click Open project in Polyspace Access to open the baseline project in the Polyspace Access interface.

  • Click baseline close button next to the name of the baseline to remove the baseline.

Polyspace as you Code monitors your baselines to verify the run ID of the baseline matches the latest run ID in Polyspace Access. You can hover over a baseline to view details such as the run ID the baseline uses and the status of the baseline. Baselines that have never been downloaded or are outdated appear in yellow text in the Baseline pane. Baselines that are outdated also display the outdated icon in the Baseline pane. To keep using the most up-to-date baseline, periodically update your baselines by downloading the latest results from Polyspace Access.

If the results from the baseline run are generated with a Polyspace version that is older than your Polyspace as You Code version, the Baseline view shows a warning.

For more information on creating baselines and connecting to Polyspace Access with Polyspace as You Code, see Visual Studio Code: Configure Baseline Results in Polyspace as You Code.

See Also

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