| title | Use PyLint for Python code | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| description | Run PyLint in Visual Studio to check issues in Python code, including command-line options to customize linting. | ||
| ms.date | 03/13/2019 | ||
| ms.topic | conceptual | ||
| author | JoshuaPartlow | ||
| ms.author | joshuapa | ||
| manager | jillfra | ||
| ms.custom | seodec18 | ||
| ms.workload |
|
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.
Just right-click a Python project in Solution Explorer and select Python > Run PyLint:
Using 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.
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, do the 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 Visual Studio Solution Explorer, right-click your project, select Add > Existing Item, navigate 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 thedisablesetting 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 delineating 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 named PYLINTRC with the value of the filename on the network share using a UNC path or a mapped drive letter. For example, PYLINTRC=\\myshare\python\.pylintrc.

