Requirements

NodeJS prerequisites for JS and TS

Sonar’s JavaScript and TypeScript analyzers require specific Node.js versions to be installed on the machine. If no compatible version is found, the analysis will not be performed. See the table below for the minimal required Node.js version per SonarLint version:

Auto-detection of compatible Node.js versions

SonarLint for Visual will attempt to locate a compatible Node.js version on the machine by searching on the %PATH%. It will also check whether there is a Node.js installation as part of the current Visual Studio installation.

If SonarLint cannot find a compatible Node.js version, it will show a notification in a gold bar like the following:

The Output Window will contain additional information about the Node.js versions that were located:

Manually specifying a custom location of Node.js installation

You can also set the environment variable SONAR_NODEJS_PATH to specify a custom location. The value should be the full file path to the node executable e.g. c:\custom\node.exe. The environment variable takes precedence over the automatic detection. You will need to restart Visual Studio after setting or changing the environment variable.

Installing Node.js

If the machine does not have a compatible version of Node.js, you can manually install one. Node.js versions can be downloaded from the official website nodejs.org. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions are supported. The simplest installation method on Windows is to use the appropriate .msi.

Deprecation of older Node.js versions

From time to time the Sonar JavaScript/TypeScript analyzer will increase the minimum required Node.js version as older versions go out of support. The dropping of support will be announced in advance in the Community Forum (e.g. this post regarding the deprecation of Node.js v12 and dropping of support for Node.js vs10).

This page will be updated as the minimum required Node.js version changes.

This article is an overview of how to get started with analyzing CMake projects in Visual Studio 2017.3 and later versions, along with information about known issues. This feature is available starting with SonarLint for Visual Studio version 4.38.

If you need more help, please start a post on the SonarLint Community - Visual Studio channel in the Sonar Community forum.

Getting started - VS2019 and later

1) Open / create a new CMake project in Visual Studio

2) Add the command set(CMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS ON) to the top-level CMakeLists.txt file:

3) Save the file.

4) Check that VS has generated the compilation database.

Source and header files will now be analyzed on opening/saving. The SonarLint Output Window will contain more information about the progress of the analysis.

Getting started - VS2017.3

Follow the same getting started steps as for VS2019 and later above. In addition, to successfully analyze C or C++ files in VS2017 your project will need to use a non-default CMakeSettings.json file. This is because the default CMakeSettings.json file uses the workspaceHash or projectHash macros, which are not supported by SonarLint in VS2017.

1) If you do not already have a CMakeSettings.json file, Visual Studio will create one when you select the  Manage Configurations... option and choose a compilation target:

Visual Studio will then create a default CMakeSettings.json file:

2) Edit the CMakeSettings.json file to change the buildRoot property to one that does not use either workspaceHash or projectHash.

Note: the defaults used by Visual Studio for buildRoot and installRoot in VS2019 have changed to:

      "buildRoot": "${projectDir}\\out\\build\\${name}",
      "installRoot": "${projectDir}\\out\\install\\${name}",

Using those values in VS2017 will allow SonarLint to correctly analyze files in the CMake project.

CMake - known limitations

VS2017: workspaceHash and projectHash macros are not supported in VS2017

VS2017 used a different hashing algorithm from VS2019, which is not supported. See issue #2632.

This means that SonarLint will not be able to analyse files if the buildRoot property uses either of these macros.

Environment variable overrides in CMakeSettings.json are not supported

SonarLint will not process environment variable overrides in CMakeSettings.json files.

The SonarLint analysis results may be incorrect if the overridden environment variables affect the CMake compilation e.g. changing the paths that are searched for header files.

CMake presets are not currently supported by SonarLint

See the Microsoft documentation for more information about support for CMake presets in Visual Studio.

Only the Ninja generator is supported

SonarLint uses the generated compilation database (compile_commands.json) to fetch the compiler options to use during analysis. The Ninja generator creates a compilation - the other VS generators do not. Visual Studio introduce support for the Ninja generator in VS2017 Update 3 (v15.3). Newer versions of VS use the Ninja generator by default. You can also configure VS to use the Ninja generator by providing an appropriate CMakeSettings.json file e.g.

{
  "configurations": [
    {
      ... 
      "name": "x64-Release",
      "generator": "Ninja",
      ...
      "buildRoot": "${projectDir}\\out\\build\\${name}\\",
      "installRoot": "${projectDir}\\out\\install\\${name}",
      ...
    }
  ]
}