How do I tell ReSharper that an attribute means that a method is used?

Question

I'm playing with SpecFlow, and ReSharper thinks that my step definitions are unused (I guess because they're used via reflection):

[Binding] public class StepDefinitions {     // ...      [When(@"I press add")]     public void WhenIPressAdd()   // R# thinks this is unused     {         _calculator.PressAdd();     }      // ... } 

How can I tell ReSharper that methods with [Given], [When], [Then] attributes (etc.) are actually used? I don't want to use // ReSharper disable UnusedMember.Global comments.

I could also mark each method (or the whole class) with [JetBrains.Annotations.UsedImplicitly]. I don't particularly want to do that either.

Answer 1

There are plenty of examples, but I wanted to be a little more explicit in case you don't want to track down an example. :)

Create a file with the name of the attribute's assembly (.xml) in %ReSharperInstallDir%\Bin\ExternalAnnotations. For example, I made Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.CodedUITestFramework.xml and put this XML inside it:

<assembly name="Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.CodedUITestFramework">   <member name="T:Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UITesting.CodedUITestAttribute">     <attribute ctor="M:JetBrains.Annotations.MeansImplicitUseAttribute.#ctor" />   </member> </assembly> 

Restart VS and you're on your way!

Answer 2

You need to use JetBrains Annotations, and mark the attribute with an MeansImplicitUseAttribute. You can either reference JetBrains.Annotations.dll directly, or you can copy the annotations source code (from ReSharper / Options / Code Inspection / Code Annotations) into your solution.

If you need to annotate some external assembly you don't own, you need to create an External Annotation file (xml) in the following folder: %ReSharperInstallDir%\Bin\ExternalAnnotations. There are plenty of examples, you can just copy some.

The external annotations file can also be in the same path as the DLL if you name it DllNameWithoutExtension.ExternalAnnotations.xml.