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Reports

Reports are configurable summaries after a Robocop scan. For example, it can display the total number of issues discovered.

Report class collects diagnostic messages from a linter and can optionally parse them. At the end of the scan it will generate the report.

To enable report use -r / --reports option and provide the name of the report. You can use multiple reports with separate arguments (-r report1 -r report2) or comma-separated list (-r report1,report2). For example:

robocop check --reports rules_by_id,version

[tool.robocop.lint]
reports = [
    "rules_by_id",
    "version"
]
Note

Reports can be only enabled and configured from the configuration file closest to the current working directory. If you configure reports in multiple configuration files, only one configuration file will apply.

To enable all default reports use --reports all. Non-default reports can be only enabled using their name.

The order of the reports is preserved. For example, if you want timestamp report to be printed before any other reports, you can use the following configuration:

robocop check --reports timestamp,all

[tool.robocop.lint]
reports = [
    "timestamp",
    "all"
]

List available reports

Print a list of all reports with their configured status by using list reports command:

robocop list reports

Configuration is reflected in the output:

robocop list reports --reports all

will print:

Available reports:
file_stats           - Prints overall statistics about number of processed files (enabled)
gitlab               - Generate Gitlab Code Quality output file (disabled - not included in all)
json_report          - Produces JSON file with found issues (disabled - not included in all)
print_issues         - Collect and print rules messages (enabled - not included in all)
return_status        - Checks if number of specific issues exceed quality gate limits (disabled - not included in all)
rules_by_error_type  - Prints total number of issues grouped by severity (enabled)
rules_by_id          - Groups detected issues by rule id and prints it ordered by most common (enabled)
sarif                - Generate SARIF output file (disabled - not included in all)
scan_timer           - Returns Robocop execution time (enabled)
sonarqube            - Generate SonarQube report (disabled - not included in all)
text_file            - Print rules messages to the file (disabled - not included in all)
timestamp            - Returns Robocop execution timestamp. (enabled)
version              - Returns Robocop version (enabled)

Enable report by passing report name using --reports option. Use `all` to enable all default reports. Non-default reports can be only enabled using report name.

You can filter the list using --enabled / --disabled flags:

robocop list reports --disabled

Comparing results

Several reports allow comparing the current run with the previous run. --persistent and --compare options can be used to display a comparison report.

Example output:

Found 18 (-3) issues: 13 (-4) INFOs, 5 (+1) WARNINGs.

Issues by ID:
MISC12 [I] (unnecessary-string-conversion)    : 10 (+0)
NAME01 [W] (not-allowed-char-in-name)         : 2 (+0)
VAR02 [I] (unused-variable)                   : 2 (-4)
VAR03 [W] (variable-overwritten-before-usage) : 2 (+1)
TAG05 [I] (could-be-test-tags)                : 1 (+0)
VAR11 [W] (overwriting-reserved-variable)     : 1 (+0)

You can enable this feature by using first storing current run with --persistent flag:

robocop check --reports all --persistent

[tool.robocop.lint]
persistent = true
reports = [
    "all"
]
Note

You can use specific reports instead of all to compare only selected reports.

Robocop stores a previous result in the cache directory.

Cache directory is stored in the different location depending on the platform:

  • Linux: "~/.cache/robocop"
  • macOS: "~/Library/Caches/robocop"
  • Windows: "C:\\Users\\<username>\\AppData\\Local\\robocop"

Only the previous run for the current working directory is saved.

Now use --compare flag to enhance reports with the previous run comparison:

robocop check --reports all --compare

[tool.robocop.lint]
compare = true
reports = [
    "all"
]

Combine both flags to always store the current run and display the difference with the previous one.

Disable all reports

When handling multiple configuration sources, it may be possible to inherit reports configuration that we don't want to use. Use special keyword None to not run any reports even if configured:

robocop check --reports sarif,all,None

Disable specific report

To turn off a specific report, even if it’s enabled by configuration or by default (print_issues), set enabled to False:

robocop check --configure print_issues.enabled=False

[tool.robocop.lint]
configure = [
    "print_issues.enabled=False"
]

enabled cannot be used to enable a report - use reports option instead.