Share via


Lint R code in Visual Studio

Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

A linter analyzes code to reveal potential errors, formatting issues, and other code noise such as spurious whitespace. Using a linter also helps encourage certain coding conventions, such as how identifiers are named. Such conventions are helpful within teams and other collaborative situations.

R Tools for Visual Studio (RTVS) provides a built-in linter for R, the behavior of which is controlled through a variety of options described in this article. These options are found in Tools > Options > Text Editor > R > Lint.

The lint is disabled by default. To enable the lint, set the All > Enable lint option to True.

When enabled, the linter runs in the editor while you type. Issues appear as green squiggles. In the following graphic, for example, RTVS has identified six lint issues, including use of = instead of <- for an assignment, lack of spacing around function arguments, use of Pascal case and uppercase identifiers, and use of a semicolon. Hovering over an issue provides a description.

Examples of linter output for R code

You often change linter options depending on the needs of a project or file. For example, sample code from an online course might use = instead of <- along with Pascal-case identifiers. Such code would show frequent linter warnings because the default linter options flag these cases. While working with that code, then, you can disable the options instead of spending time correcting each instance.

Assignment group

Option Default value Lint effect
Enforce <- True Identifies when <- isn't used for assignment.

Naming group

These options flag identifiers that use different naming conventions:

Option Default value Lint effect
Flag camelCase False Flags identifiers that use camelCase.
Flag long names False Flags identifiers whose names exceed the Max name length setting.
Flag multiple dots True Flags identifiers that use multiple dots.
Flag PascalCase True Flags identifiers that use PascalCase.
Flag snake_case False Flags identifiers that use underscores.
Flag UPPERCASE True Flags identifiers that use all caps.
Max name length 32 The length applied with the Flag long names setting.

Spacing group

These options, all of which are set to True by default, control where the linter identifies spacing issues: after function names, around commas, around operators, opening and closing curly positions, space before (, and space inside ().

Statements group

Option Default value Lint effect
Multiple True Identifies when multiple statements are on the same line.
Semicolons True Identifies uses of semicolons.

Text group

Option Default value Lint effect
Line length limit False Sets whether the linter flags lines longer than the Max line length option.
Max line length 80 Sets the line length applied by the Line length limit option.

Whitespace group

These options, all of which are set to True by default, control where the linter identifies whitespace issues: use of tabs, use of double-quotes, trailing empty lines, and trailing whitespace.