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@Copilot Copilot AI commented Sep 5, 2025

This PR implements a new analyzer that warns developers about empty test methods, which are useless pieces of code that should either be removed or have meaningful test logic added.

What's New

The analyzer introduces diagnostic MSTEST0056 with the following behavior:

Warns about empty test methods:

[TestMethod]
public void EmptyTest()
{
    // Warning: Test method 'EmptyTest' is empty
}

[TestMethod] 
public void TestWithOnlyComments()
{
    // This is just a comment
    /* Another comment */
    // Warning: Test method 'TestWithOnlyComments' is empty
}

Ignores methods with meaningful content:

[TestMethod]
public void ValidTest()
{
    Assert.IsTrue(true); // No warning - has assertion
}

[TestMethod]
public void TestWithLogic()
{
    var result = CalculateSomething(); // No warning - has logic
    Assert.AreEqual(42, result);
}

Implementation Details

  • Diagnostic ID: MSTEST0056
  • Category: Design
  • Severity: Warning
  • Scope: Methods with [TestMethod] attribute or derived attributes (like [DataTestMethod])

The analyzer uses operation analysis to distinguish between truly empty methods and those with meaningful statements. It correctly handles:

  • Completely empty method bodies
  • Methods containing only comments or whitespace
  • Derived test method attributes
  • Async test methods
  • Nested operations and compiler-generated code

Localization

Full localization support has been added across all 13 supported languages with appropriate resource entries.

Testing

Comprehensive test coverage includes positive and negative test cases for all supported scenarios, ensuring the analyzer correctly identifies empty test methods while avoiding false positives.

Fixes #6518.

Warning

Firewall rules blocked me from connecting to one or more addresses (expand for details)

I tried to connect to the following addresses, but was blocked by firewall rules:

  • m8dvsblobprodcus37.vsblob.vsassets.io
    • Triggering command: /home/REDACTED/work/testfx/testfx/.dotnet/dotnet msbuild /m /nologo /clp:Summary /v:minimal /nr:true /warnaserror /p:TreatWarningsAsErrors=true /p:ContinuousIntegrationBuild=false /home/REDACTED/work/testfx/testfx/artifacts/toolset/restore.proj /t:__WriteToolsetLocation /clp:ErrorsOnly;NoSummary /p:__ToolsetLocationOutputFile=/home/REDACTED/work/testfx/testfx/artifacts/toolset/11.0.0-beta.25453.1.txt (dns block)
    • Triggering command: dotnet build src/Analyzers/MSTest.Analyzers/MSTest.Analyzers.csproj (dns block)

If you need me to access, download, or install something from one of these locations, you can either:


✨ Let Copilot coding agent set things up for you — coding agent works faster and does higher quality work when set up for your repo.

@Copilot Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] Empty test method warning Add analyzer to detect empty test methods (MSTEST0056) Sep 5, 2025
@Copilot Copilot AI requested a review from Evangelink September 5, 2025 09:04
Copilot finished work on behalf of Evangelink September 5, 2025 09:04
@drieseng
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drieseng commented Sep 5, 2025

Will you be duplicating all existing analyzer rules specifically for MSTest?
In this case, you're duplicating https://rules.sonarsource.com/csharp/RSPEC-1186.

I don't understand why someone would think it's bad to have an empty test method, but would think it's perfectly fine to have empty non-test methods. If you care about either the latter or both, use SonarAnalyzer.CSharp.

The reason why I bring this up is because running analyzer rules is super costly. In our case, it adds about 8 minutes to our build. Having duplicate rules won't help.

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Empty test method warning
3 participants