Usage

You can’t use ., but you can use a directory name or *.

$ pylint my_app

If you have import problems, you can do this:

$ export PYTHONPATH=my_app && pylint my_app

But this will not work as you’ll get the same import error as before.

$ cd my_app && pylint *

The exit codes are not meaningful to read. But you can use a package to be more verbose and it also takes flags so you can set the tolerance of level to error out on.

$ pylint my_app || pylint-exit $?

Rules

Formats that Pylint accepts - copied from message-control doc.

For all of these controls, pylint accepts the following values:

  • a symbolic message: no-member, undefined-variable etc.
  • a numerical ID: E1101, E1102 etc.
  • The name of the group of checks. You can grab those with pylint --list-groups. For example, you can disable / enable all the checks related to type checking, with typecheck or all the checks related to variables with variables
  • Corresponding category of the checks
    • C convention related checks
    • R refactoring related checks
    • W various warnings
    • E errors, for probable bugs in the code
    • F fatal, if an error occurred which prevented pylint from doing further processing.
  • All the checks with all

Print all messages:

# Generate pylint's messages.
pylint OPTIONS --list-msgs

Config

Generate a config.

$ pylint OPTIONS --generate-rcfile > .pylintrc

Sample:

  • .pylintrc 
      [MESSAGES CONTROL]

  # Enable the message, report, category or checker with the given id(s). You can
  # either give multiple identifier separated by comma (,) or put this option
  # multiple time.
  #enable=

  # Disable the message, report, category or checker with the given id(s). You
  # can either give multiple identifier separated by comma (,) or put this option
  # multiple time (only on the command line, not in the configuration file where
  # it should appear only once).
  #disable=

How to disable rules

Approaches to disabling a pylint rule.

Shell

Disable from the shell.

$ pylint OPTIONS --disable=W
$ pylint OPTIONS --disable-all

File

Disable for an entire file.

# pylint: disable=missing-function-docstring

Scope

Disable for a scope - same as above but only applies in the scope.

def test():
    # pylint: disable=no-member
    foo()

Line

Disable for line.

a, b = foo() # pylint: disable=unbalanced-tuple-unpacking

Config

Using config file:

  • .pylintrc 
      [MESSAGES CONTROL]
  disable= 
    wildcard-import,
    method-hidden,
    too-many-lines

Symbols and names

Use symbols:

# pylint: disable=C0116, ..., ...

Use symbolic names

# pylint: disable=locally-disabled, multiple-statements, fixme, line-too-long

Note that this is more likely to push your length over the limit. Here is an example where Black wrapped the line.

def handle_task(
    task_name: str,
) -> Optional[bool]:  # pylint: disable=unsubscriptable-object
    pass