Use PyLint to check Python code
Applies to: Visual Studio
Visual Studio for Mac
Visual Studio Code
PyLint, a widely used tool that checks for errors in Python code and encourages good Python coding patterns, is integrated into Visual Studio for Python projects.
Run PyLint
In Visual Studio, right-click a Python project in Solution Explorer and select Python and then Run PyLint:
This command prompts you to install PyLint into your active environment if it's not already present.
PyLint warnings and errors appear in the Error List window:
Double-clicking an error takes you directly to the source code that generated the issue.
Tip
See the PyLint features reference for a detailed list of all the PyLint output messages.
Set PyLint command-line options
The command-line options section of the PyLint documentation describes how to control PyLint's behavior through a .pylintrc
configuration file. Such a file can be placed in the root of a Python project in Visual Studio or elsewhere, depending on how widely you want those settings applied (see the command-line options for details).
For example, to suppress the "missing docstring" warnings shown in the previous image with a .pylintrc
file in a project, perform the following steps:
On the command line, navigate to your project root (which has your
.pyproj
file) and run the following command to generate a commented configuration file:pylint --generate-rcfile > .pylintrc
In the Solution Explorer window, right-click your project and select Add > Existing Item. Then go to the new
.pylintrc
file, select it, and select Add.Open the file for editing, which has several settings you can work with. To disable a warning, locate the
[MESSAGES CONTROL]
section, then locate thedisable
setting in that section. There's a long string of specific messages to which you can append whichever warnings you want. In the example here, append,missing-docstring
(including the outlining comma).Save the
.pylintrc
file and run PyLint again to see that the warnings are now suppressed.Tip
To use a
.pylintrc
file from a network share, create an environment variable namedPYLINTRC
with the value of the filename on the network share using a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path or a mapped drive letter. For example,PYLINTRC=\\myshare\python\.pylintrc
.
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