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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 06/02/2022
ms.topic how-to
author cwebster-99
ms.author cowebster
manager jmartens
ms.technology vs-python
ms.custom devdivchpfy22
ms.workload
python
data-science

Use PyLint to check Python code

[!INCLUDE Visual Studio]

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: :::image type="content" source="media/code-pylint-command.png" alt-text="Screenshot of PyLint command on context menu for Python projects in solution explorer.":::

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: :::image type="content" source="media/code-pylint-error-list.png" alt-text="Screenshot showing the PyLint error list.":::

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:

  1. 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

  2. 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.

  3. Open the file for editing, which has several settings you can work with. To disable a warning, locate the [MESSAGES CONTROL] section, then locate the disable 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).

  4. 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 Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path or a mapped drive letter. For example, PYLINTRC=\\myshare\python\.pylintrc.