Question

How can I suppress FxCop warnings for a whole type?

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{     
    public static class Serializer<T>
    {
        public static string Serialize(T obj)
        {
            return string.Empty;
        }

        public static T Deserialize(string str)
        {
            return default(T);
        }
    }

I tried this, but it is not working for me:

[assembly: SuppressMessage("Microsoft.Design",
    "CA1000:DoNotDeclareStaticMembersOnGenericTypes", Scope = "Type",
    Target = "ConsoleApplication1.Serializer'1")]

Answer 1

Unfortunately, this will not work. FxCop only processes suppressions that are declared against the same target as a detected violation. If it finds a violation on your Serialize method, the only SuppressMessage attributes that will “hide” that violation are either one declared on the method itself or one whose Target property identifies the method.

If you want to suppress a CA1000 violation for each of your static methods in the Serializer<T> class, you will need to do this by creating a SuppressMessage attribute for each of those methods.

@Matt Faus: What’s the point of the Scope argument then?

The Scope argument lets FxCop know what kind of thing the Target argument represents. For example, if Target is "A.B.C", does that refer to a namespace named A.B.C or a class named C in the namespace A.B? Scope should probably be named something like TargetKind, but that, unfortunately, does not change what it actually represents…

Also see this answer.