Linting

• Linting ⇒ automated check of your code for programmatic and stylistic errors.
• This is done by using a tool known as a linter.
• A linter is a basic static code analyzer ⇒ it analyzes the code without running it.
• The term linting originally comes from a Unix utility for C.
• VS Code is prepared for linting and comes with a few linters.
• Linters are often used by companies to ensure a certain code standard.

Linters available in VS Code

• Pylint - Enforces a soft coding standard.
• pycodestyle - Enforces pep8, a much harder coding standard.
• PyFlakes - Analyzes programs and detects various errors (Errors that might show up at runtime).
• Bandit - Analyzes code to find common security issues.
• ... a few more.
• Flake8 - a combination of PyFlakes and pycodestyle

Example using Flake8

Flake8 found several code style errors in a small program that

Turn on Flake8 in VS Code

• You will be using the Command Palette (CP).
• You find CP in menu View → Command Palette.
• Enable linting: In CP, search for Enable/Disable Linting and switch to Enable.
• Enable Flake8: In CP, search for Select Linter and select flake8.

Flake8 is applied when you save a file and the result shows up in the Problem terminal.

Interested in code style? Look up the pep8 code guide by the inventor of Python.