microsoft / microsoft/vscode-cpptools

Linter provides no warnings for invalid C code

Open
#828 20 comments 35 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Feature Request Language Service postponed
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
6.2k
Forks
1.7k
Avg merge
14h 46m
Merged PRs (30d)
61

Description

See title, create a fresh test.c file with the contents:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    asdfd;
    return 0;
}

(If) Linting is working properly, asdfd will be underlined with squigglies as you would expect. What you would not expect is that turning it into a function call makes the squigglies go away:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    asdfd();
    return 0;
}

Furthermore, hovering over it produces the popup int asdfd(), as if it was defined to return int somewhere. This is just silly.

Related to #746

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Reproduce the behavior in a fresh test.c using the two snippets, comparing the standalone invalid identifier with the function-call form. Read related issue #746 and trace the C/C++ linting and hover behavior from that reproduction. Done means both invalid forms are diagnosed appropriately and the call no longer gets a fabricated int asdfd() hover.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c
Domain
devtools
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.