Pylint output
*************

The default format for the output is raw text. You can change this by
passing pylint the "--output-format=<value>" option. Possible values
are: parseable, colorized, msvs (visual studio) and html.

Moreover you can customize the exact way information are displayed
using the *--msg-template=<format string>* option. The *format string*
uses the Python new format syntax and the following fields are
available :

path
   relative path to the file

abspath
   absolute path to the file

line
   line number

column
   column number

module
   module name

obj
   object within the module (if any)

msg
   text of the message

msg_id
   the message code (eg. I0011)

symbol
   symbolic name of the message (eg. locally-disabled)

C
   one letter indication of the message category

category
   fullname of the message category

For example, the former (pre 1.0) default format can be obtained with:

   pylint --msg-template='{msg_id}:{line:3d},{column}: {obj}: {msg}'

A few other examples:

* the new default format:

     {C}:{line:3d},{column:2d}: {msg} ({symbol})

* Visual Studio compatible format (former 'msvs' output format):

     {path}({line}): [{msg_id}{obj}] {msg}

* Parseable (Emacs and all, former 'parseable' output format)
  format:

     {path}:{line}: [{msg_id}({symbol}), {obj}] {msg}

* HTML output (Default for the html output format) format:

     '{category}{module}{obj}{line}{column}{msg}'


Source code analysis section
============================

For each python module, Pylint will first display a few '*' characters
followed by the name of the module. Then, a number of messages with
the following format:

   MESSAGE_TYPE: LINE_NUM:[OBJECT:] MESSAGE

You can get another output format, useful since it's recognized by
most editors or other development tools using the "--output-
format=parseable" option.

The message type can be:

   * [R]efactor for a "good practice" metric violation

   * [C]onvention for coding standard violation

   * [W]arning for stylistic problems, or minor programming issues

   * [E]rror for important programming issues (i.e. most probably
     bug)

   * [F]atal for errors which prevented further processing

Sometimes the line of code which caused the error is displayed with a
caret pointing to the error. This may be generalized in future
versions of Pylint.

Example (extracted from a run of Pylint on itself...):

   ************* Module pylint.checkers.format
   W: 50: Too long line (86/80)
   W:108: Operator not followed by a space
        print >>sys.stderr, 'Unable to match %r', line
               ^
   W:141: Too long line (81/80)
   W: 74:searchall: Unreachable code
   W:171:FormatChecker.process_tokens: Redefining built-in (type)
   W:150:FormatChecker.process_tokens: Too many local variables (20/15)
   W:150:FormatChecker.process_tokens: Too many branches (13/12)


Reports section
===============

Following the analysis message, Pylint will display a set of reports,
each one focusing on a particular aspect of the project, such as
number of messages by categories, modules dependencies...

For instance, the metrics report displays summaries gathered from the
current run.

   * the number of processed modules

   * for each module, the percentage of errors and warnings

   * the total number of errors and warnings

   * percentage of classes, functions and modules with docstrings,
     and a comparison from the previous run

   * percentage of classes, functions and modules with correct name
     (according to the coding standard), and a comparison from the
     previous run

   * a list of external dependencies found in the code, and where
     they appear

Also, a global evaluation for the code is computed.