You are probably here because you want to add a new lint to Clippy. If this is
the first time you're contributing to Clippy, this document guides you through
creating an example lint from scratch.
To get started, we will create a lint that detects functions called `foo`,
because that's clearly a non-descriptive name.
* [Testing](#Testing)
* [Lint declaration](#Lint-declaration)
* [Lint passes](#Lint-passes)
* [Emitting a lint](#Emitting-a-lint)
* [Adding the lint logic](#Adding-the-lint-logic)
* [Documentation](#Documentation)
* [Debugging](#Debugging)
* [PR Checklist](#PR-Checklist)
* [Cheatsheet](#Cheatsheet)
### Testing
Let's write some tests first that we can execute while we iterate on our lint.
Clippy uses UI tests for testing. UI tests check that the output of Clippy is
exactly as expected. Each test is just a plain Rust file that contains the code
we want to check. The output of Clippy is compared against a `.stderr` file.
Let's create the test file at `tests/ui/foo_functions.rs`. It doesn't really
matter what the file is called, but it's a good convention to name it after the
lint it is testing, so `foo_functions.rs` it is.
Inside we put some examples to get started:
```rust
#![warn(clippy::foo_functions)]
// Impl methods
struct A;
impl A {
pub fn fo(&self) {}
pub fn foo(&self) {}
pub fn food(&self) {}
}
// Default trait methods
trait B {
pub fn fo(&self) {}
pub fn foo(&self) {}
pub fn food(&self) {}
}
// Plain functions
fn fo() {}
fn foo() {}
fn food() {}
fn main() {
// We also don't want to lint method calls
foo();
let a = A;
a.foo();
}
```
Now we can run the test with `TESTNAME=ui/foo_functions cargo uitest`.
Currently this test will fail. If you go through the output you will see that we
have to add some missing imports to our lint file.
While you are working on implementing your lint, you can keep running the UI
test. That allows you to check if the output is turning into what you want.
Once you are satisfied with the output, you need to run
`tests/ui/update-all-references.sh` to update the `stderr` file for your lint.
Running `TESTNAME=ui/foo_functions cargo uitest` should pass then. When you
commit your lint, be sure to commit the `*.stderr` files, too.
Let's have a look at implementing our lint now.
### Lint declaration
We start by creating a new file in the `clippy_lints` crate. That's the crate
where all the lint code is. We are going to call the file
`clippy_lints/src/foo_functions.rs` and import some initial things we need:
```rust
use rustc::lint::{LintArray, LintPass};
use rustc::{declare_tool_lint, lint_array};
```
The next step is to provide a lint declaration. Lints are declared using the [`declare_clippy_lint!`][declare_clippy_lint] macro:
```rust
declare_clippy_lint! {
pub FOO_FUNCTIONS,
pedantic,
"function named `foo`, which is not a descriptive name"
}
```
*`FOO_FUNCTIONS` is the name of our lint. Be sure to follow the [lint naming
guidelines][lint_naming] here when naming your lint. In short, the name should
state the thing that is being checked for and read well when used with
`allow`/`warn`/`deny`.
*`pedantic` sets the lint level to `Allow`.
The exact mapping can be found [here][category_level_mapping]
* The last part should be a text that explains what exactly is wrong with the
code
With our lint declaration done, we will now make sure that our lint declaration is assigned to a lint pass:
```rust
// clippy_lints/src/foo_functions.rs
// .. imports and lint declaration ..
#[derive(Copy, Clone)]
pub struct FooFunctionsPass;
impl LintPass for FooFunctionsPass {
fn get_lints(&self) -> LintArray {
lint_array!(
FOO_FUNCTIONS,
)
}
fn name(&self) -> &'static str {
"FooFunctions"
}
}
```
Don't worry about the `name` method here. As long as it includes the name of the lint pass it should be fine.
Next you should run `util/dev update_lints` to register the lint in various
places, mainly in `clippy_lints/src/lib.rs`.
While `update_lints` automates some things, it doesn't automate everything. We will have to register our lint pass manually in the `register_plugins` function in `clippy_lints/src/lib.rs`:
Without that, running the UI tests would produce an error like `unknown clippy lint: clippy::foo_functions`.
The next decision we have to make is which lint pass our lint is going to need.
### Lint passes
Writing a lint that just checks for the name of a function means that we just
have to deal with the AST and don't have to deal with the type system at all.
This is good, because it makes writing this particular lint less complicated.
We have to make this decision with every new Clippy lint. It boils down to using either `EarlyLintPass` or `LateLintPass`. This is a result of Rust's compilation process. You can read more about it [in the rustc guide][compilation_stages].
In short, the `LateLintPass` has access to type information while the `EarlyLintPass` doesn't. If you don't need access to type information, use the `EarlyLintPass`. The `EarlyLintPass` is also faster. However linting speed hasn't really been a concern with Clippy so far.
Since we don't need type information for checking the function name, we are going to use the `EarlyLintPass`. It has to be imported as well, changing our imports to:
```rust
use rustc::lint::{LintArray, LintPass, EarlyLintPass, EarlyContext};
use rustc::{declare_tool_lint, lint_array};
```
### Emitting a lint
With UI tests in place, we can start working on the implementation of the lint logic. We can keep executing the tests until we make them pass.
Let's start by emitting a lint for every function definition.
We implement the [`check_fn`][check_fn] method from the [`EarlyLintPass`][early_lint_pass] trait. This gives us access to various information about the function that is currently being checked. More on that in the next section. Let's worry about the details later and emit our lint for *every* function definition first.
Depending on how complex we want our lint message to be, we can choose from a variety of lint emission functions.
They can all be found in [`clippy_lints/src/utils/diagnostics.rs`][diagnostics].
