Rule UseSyntacticallyCorrectExamples fails if parameter uses type that is not loaded

[johlju]

If the rule is testing a function hat has a parameter with a type that is not loaded into the session the rule fails on all parameters in all examples.

For example if having this parameter:

param
(
    [Parameter()]
    [Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.Server]
    $SqlServerObject
)

This row will return the function but the property Parameters will be $null

https://github.com/indented-automation/Indented.ScriptAnalyzerRules/blob/e1466ed5a82f30173e3f5ae58df6be08c62a2dac/Indented.ScriptAnalyzerRules/public/rules/UseSyntacticallyCorrectExamples.ps1#L25

which result in that this evaluation always return $true

https://github.com/indented-automation/Indented.ScriptAnalyzerRules/blob/e1466ed5a82f30173e3f5ae58df6be08c62a2dac/Indented.ScriptAnalyzerRules/public/rules/UseSyntacticallyCorrectExamples.ps1#L54

Suggest adding a error message when $null -eq $functionInfo.Parameters saying something like "Parameters of the function X could not be parsed, this can for example be due to that a type that is used by a parameter is not loaded into the session.".

I worked around this by loading stubs classes before running Invoke-ScriptAnalyzer.

[indented-automation]

Thanks! I'll see if I can dream up a way around this.

Chris

[johlju]

Should we just replace "unknown" types with [Object] before creating the ScriptBlock of the function definition? 🤔

https://github.com/indented-automation/Indented.ScriptAnalyzerRules/blob/e1466ed5a82f30173e3f5ae58df6be08c62a2dac/Indented.ScriptAnalyzerRules/public/rules/UseSyntacticallyCorrectExamples.ps1#L24

[indented-automation]

I was trying to avoid this, it means that every time the rule is evaluated every single script block is being stringified, edited, and tested again.

I was trying to see if I could come up with a different way of generating the syntax block, but I just haven't had time to really look.

[johlju]

This seems to also happen if the [OutputType()] is using a type that is not loaded into the session, e.g. [OutputType([DatabasePermission[]])]. In this case the DatabasePermission is a class that is not available until the module is built. Changing the output type to [OutputType([System.Object[]])] makes the rule pass.