.NET Tutorial

Creating a Rule Set

Rule Sets provide Globalyzer with the specific instructions needed to analyze source code and report internationalization problems. Within Globalyzer you will need to create at least one Rule Set for each programming language you intend to scan. In the case of Web files, a single source file can contain multiple programming languages, hence you need to create a separate Rule Set for each programming language contained in your Web source files. In this lesson, you will scan both .aspx Web files and .cs source files. The .aspx files contain in-line C#, JavaScript and HTML. For this lesson you will need to create three separate Rule Sets.

  1. From your Home Page on the server, select Create Rule Set. The Create Rule Set page appears.

  2. Fill in the fields as follows :

    • Enter csharp in the Name field.
    • Select c# from the Language - Variant dropdown menu.
    • Leave the Shared checkbox unchecked to indicate that this rule set won't be shared with other team members.

     

  3. Click Create. The Customize Rule Set page appears, for the newly created Rule Set, csharp.

    The rule set csharp can be configured from this page.

    Each rule set consists of the file extension configuration and four types of rules: Embedded String Scan Rules, Locale-Sensitive Method Scan Rules, General Pattern Scan Rules, and Static File Reference Scan Rules.

     

  4. Under the Source File Extensions heading, select the Configure link next to Detection Rules. The Edit File Extensions for csharp page appears.

    Globalyzer will only scan source files that have the listed extensions; all other file types will be ignored.

    Notice that the extensions asax, ascx, ashx, aspx and cs are already listed and selected. This is because you picked c# as the programming language for your Rule Set. Unless your application uses non-standard source file extensions, it is usually not necessary to modify the default File Extensions that Globalyzer provides.

    If you do need to add an extension, click on New File Extension in the middle of the screen above the list of extensions. This will display the Create File Extension for csharp page. You can also uncheck a default extension if you want Globalyzer to ignore those source files.

  5. Click on the Back to Summary link to return to the previous page.

    Source Code directories can be filtered in the Globalyzer Client, as you will see later, but also in the Rule Set. Under Source File Extensions click the Configure link next to Filtering Rules. The Edit File Extension Filters for csharp page appears. Click on the New File Extension Filter at the top of this page to see the following page:

    This is where you can tell Globalyzer that whenever this rule set is applied to any source code, specific parts of the source code tree should be ignored. Both Ant style and Regular Expressions are supported. For example, you could ignore test directories, by entering a filter with **/test/** as the Ant pattern; or ignore the bin directory with a **/bin/** Ant pattern. Specific filenames can also be ignored using Regular Expressions; for example the Regular Expression (?i)Debug will ignore any files that have the case-insensitive text debug in the filepath.

  6. Click on the Back to Summary link to return to the previous page.

    In addition to the file extensions, There are four scan rules (Embedded String Scan Rules, Locale-Sensitive Method Scan Rules, General Pattern Scan Rules and Static File Reference Scan Rules), they are each divided into two categories: Detection Rules and Filter Rules.

    Detection Rules specify conditions that the Globalyzer source code scanner will detect in your source code and report to you. For instance, under Locale-Sensitive Method Scan Rules, click the Configure link for Detection Rules.

    By default for C#, there are four method groups under that heading. By clicking on New Locale-Sensitive Method Group, another method group can be added to the default set.

    The Enabled checkbox for each group allows you to enable or disable a set of methods all at once rather than checking or unchecking individual methods within each group.

  7. Click on the Culture and Number format method group link.

    The default C# methods are listed in that group. For example, if the Compare method is detected in your C# source code, the scanner will report it to you. Globalyzer provides custom help for most locale-sensitive methods: Click on the link in the Help Page column of the Compare method for a description of specific internationalization issues associated with Compare.

    Note: If you are a Demo User, you will not be able to view the Locale-Sensitive Methods. Please contact Lingoport at sales@lingoport.com for a more thorough evaluation.

  8. Click Back to Summary to return to the previous page.

    Filtering Rules specify conditions that the scanner will overlook. For instance, during the Embedded String Scan, Globalyzer will detect all embedded strings. However, many of these strings are programmatic and will not be displayed to the user, and therefore do not pose internationalization problems. To filter out these false positives Globalyzer Rule Sets come with predefined filters. There are four types of Embedded String Filters: String Content Filters, String Method Filters, String Variable Filters, and String Line Filters.

    Under Embedded String Scan Rules and Filtering Rules, click String Method Filters. Look for the filter named CultureInfo. The method CultureInfo is listed because

    System.Globalization.CultureInfo

    takes a string argument, but this string would never appear as text visible to a user in a user interface. Therefore, CultureInfo is listed as a String Method Filter by default. When Globalyzer detects an embedded string during the string scanning process, before reporting it as an issue, it will first check to make sure that it is not an argument passed into any of the methods in this list.

  9. Take a few minutes to examine (but not change) the other rules, such as General Pattern Detection Rules or Static File Reference Filter Rules by clicking Configure to their left.

  10. Repeat steps 1-3 twice to create two new Rule Sets.

    • For the first Rule Set, select html as the programming language, and name the Rule Set html.

    • For the second Rule Set, select javascript as the programming language, and name the Rule Set javascript. To complete most of the remaining lessons, you need all three Rule Sets: csharp, html and javascript.

In the next lesson, you will edit a Rule Set to further refine the code scanning results.