Is there a way to enforce using tabs instead of spaces?

Question

StyleCop offers to check for consistent use of spaces, but sadly lacks the opposite idea: Force source code to use tabs. Is there some way to add this functionality? It does

Answer 1

The package approach:

It seems that the current trend is to do this through nuget packages (and that the classic StyleCop may be phased out at some point). So, to do this with the packages, do the following:

via nuget:

Install-Package Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.FxCopAnalyzers
Install-Package StyleCop.Analyzers -Version 1.1.0-beta006

Notice the reference to the pre-releaset (at this time), the settings for tabs are only available in the beta.

add the following code to your project as ca.ruleset:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RuleSet Name="Custom Rulset" Description="Custom Rulset" ToolsVersion="14.0">
    <Rules AnalyzerId="AsyncUsageAnalyzers" RuleNamespace="AsyncUsageAnalyzers">
        <Rule Id="UseConfigureAwait" Action="Warning" />
    </Rules>
    <Rules AnalyzerId="Microsoft.Analyzers.ManagedCodeAnalysis" RuleNamespace="Microsoft.Rules.Managed">
        <Rule Id="CA1001" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1009" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1016" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1033" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1049" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1060" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1061" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1063" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1065" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1301" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1400" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1401" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1403" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1404" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1405" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1410" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1415" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1821" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1900" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1901" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2002" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2100" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2101" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2108" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2111" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2112" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2114" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2116" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2117" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2122" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2123" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2124" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2126" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2131" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2132" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2133" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2134" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2137" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2138" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2140" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2141" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2146" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2147" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2149" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2200" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2202" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2207" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2212" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2213" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2214" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2216" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2220" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2229" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2231" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2232" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2235" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2236" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2237" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2238" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2240" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2241" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA2242" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="CA1012" Action="Warning" />
    </Rules>
    <Rules AnalyzerId="StyleCop.Analyzers" RuleNamespace="StyleCop.Analyzers">
        <Rule Id="SA1305" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="SA1412" Action="Warning" />
        <Rule Id="SA1600" Action="None" />
        <Rule Id="SA1609" Action="Warning" />
    </Rules>
</RuleSet>

Add it to your project file by editing the .csproj file and adding:

<PropertyGroup>
    <CodeAnalysisRuleSet>ca.ruleset</CodeAnalysisRuleSet>
</PropertyGroup>

To override the tab (and other) settings, you will need to add a stylecop.json file to your project. In the file properties, set the Build Action to '(analyzer) additional file'. Depending on the project type, the actual word 'analyzer' may not be present.

Edit the stylecop.json file to something like the following:

{
  "$schema": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DotNetAnalyzers/StyleCopAnalyzers/master/StyleCop.Analyzers/StyleCop.Analyzers/Settings/stylecop.schema.json",
  "settings": {
    "documentationRules": {
      "companyName": "YourCompanyName",
      "copyrightText": "Copyright (c) {companyName}. All Rights Reserved.\r\nLicensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE in the project root for license information.",
      "xmlHeader": false,
      "fileNamingConvention": "metadata"
    },
    "indentation": {
      "useTabs": true
    }
  }
}

At least for .NET standard projects, you need to insure that the following is in the csproj file (and no other references to file):

<ItemGroup>
  <AdditionalFiles Include="stylecop.json" />
</ItemGroup>

You may have to reload the project and the packages to get them to recognize the stylecop.json file.

References:

DotNetAnalyzers/StyleCopAnalyzers

.NET Core, Code Analysis and StyleCop