CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#visual-studiovisual-studio-2022pragmaautomated-refactoring
Brendan Lynn
Brendan Lynn

Reputation: 468

Visual Studio Stop Refactoring Away Using In Specific Area

Usually, I can disable an annoying warning by wrapping two pragma warning disable statements around it. For instance:

#pragma warning disable IDE0060
public static int MultiplyByZero(int Number)
    => 0;
#pragma warning restore IDE0060

However, consider the following situation:

I have a file that uses many static classes all in the same namespace. They are very predictably named:

using static MyLib.Class0;
using static MyLib.Class1;
using static MyLib.Class2;
...
using static MyLib.Class9;

However, my class does not always use all these static classes. After one edit, it might only use Class0, Class3, and Class4. After another, it might only use Class1, Class3, and Class6. But I know that it is always going to use some of those classes.

When I attempt to save my file, Visual Studio naturally wants to refactor away all the unused usings. I told it to do that, after all, and I do still want that to happen for other unused usings, just not these.

Visual Studio did not provide the ID for removing unnecessary usings, but I looked it up on Google, and found it was IDE0005. So, as any good programmer would, I put that around my usings:

#pragma warning disable IDE0005
using static MyLib.Class0;
using static MyLib.Class1;
using static MyLib.Class2;
...
using static MyLib.Class9;
#pragma warning restore IDE0005

Visual Studio agreed with me that the pragmas were necessary, since it didn't lighten them as it usually does with unnecessary pragmas. I assumed that meant it would do what I wanted. However, when I clicked save, my usings disappeared anyway.

I looked at Intellisense's suggestions for other types of pragma besides warning. There was only checksum, whose documentation looked rather scary, and unrelated to my problem.

How can I make Visual Studio keep specific using statements?

To be clear, I am not looking for a file-wide or project-wide solution. There are other places where I would like that feature. I just need a way to mark a specific bit of code such that no usings will be removed.

Edit:

As multiple users in the comments have noted, this is not default behavior for Visual Studio. I have "Remove unnecessary imports or usings" selected in Configure Code Cleanup. I didn't occur to me that not everyone did that. So I guess the question really is, "How can I disable Code Cleanup for a specific few lines of code".

Upvotes: 0

Views: 190

Answers (1)

Brendan Lynn
Brendan Lynn

Reputation: 468

As users in the comments have stated, there does not currently exist such a feature in Visual Studio. Hopefully such a feature will be created in the future, but none exist yet.

Until then, I have worked around the problem by commenting out then unnecessary usings. Then, when they are necessary, I can simply uncomment them to use them.

Thanks anyway to those who tried. Happy coding.

Upvotes: 0

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