Question

We use an issue tracker (Redmine) for our software tasks/bugs and often mark the fixes/implementations with a comment like this:

// fixes #1234: changed this and that

Or we also mark code locations which cause a certain bug like this:

// causes #2345

Now, I am looking for a tool which can automatically track those issue-related comments in all files in the current solution and present them in a list or tree. This is similar to the task list which scans the files for comments with // TODO or // HACK. Unfortunately, it is not possible to define a new task category with just # as identifier because this character is not allowed.

Does anyone know of such a functionality, addon, or tool for VS2010 or VS2008?

Answer 1

This is generally a feature provided by whatever issue tracking software you use rather than a function of Visual Studio. Codebase HQ for example scans code (on commit) for speciially formatted comments that it is configured to recognise and groups the code change/commit to the record of the issue. It’s web-based.

Axosoft OnTime provide a plugin for Visual Studio which allow you to work with your issues directly within the IDE.

See: http://www.axosoft.com/ontime/visual_studio_plugin

Failing that, if you only want to track bug causes between commits while you’re working, then the inbuild tracker might be of use after all…

Add a tag to track with to Visual Studios configuration (I’ve added the CausesBug token)…

Then add the token in amongst your code:

  public override bool IsApproved {
     get
     {
        // CausesBug: 1234
        return this.IsEnabled;
     }
     set { this.IsEnabled = value; }    
  }

Then each item gets listed in the Task List, displaying location in source, until you can ammend, and then say you fixed the issue in your commit, in turn getting picked up by your issue tracker.