The issue exists because Helper.IsVariableGlobalOrEnvironment uses an Ast to key into VariableAnalysisDictionary, calling VariableAnalysis.IsGlobalOrEnvironment on the value returned to determine whether or not the variable is a global. However, in some cases, the key does not exist in the dictionary, resulting in the method returning false. Fortunately, VariableAnalysis.IsGlobalOrEnvironment depends on no instance members, instead relying solely on the properties of VariableExpressionAst, which is passed in. As such, VariableAnalysis.IsGlobalOrEnvironment can be made static with no consequence, allowing Helper.IsVariableGlobalOrEnvironment to call the method without the dictionary operations.
Also of note, the current implementation is somewhat redundant, with UseDeclaredVarsMoreThanAssignments.AnalyzeScriptBlockAst checking VariablePath.DriveName separately, which is why the issue does not affect environment variables despite VariableAnalysis.IsGlobalOrEnvironment erroneously returning false in some cases.
PR Summary
This PR fixes the following longstanding issue: https://github.com/PowerShell/PSScriptAnalyzer/issues/1300 (Global variables are erroneously reported as "never used")
The issue exists because
Helper.IsVariableGlobalOrEnvironment
uses anAst
to key intoVariableAnalysisDictionary
, callingVariableAnalysis.IsGlobalOrEnvironment
on the value returned to determine whether or not the variable is a global. However, in some cases, the key does not exist in the dictionary, resulting in the method returningfalse
. Fortunately,VariableAnalysis.IsGlobalOrEnvironment
depends on no instance members, instead relying solely on the properties ofVariableExpressionAst
, which is passed in. As such,VariableAnalysis.IsGlobalOrEnvironment
can be madestatic
with no consequence, allowingHelper.IsVariableGlobalOrEnvironment
to call the method without the dictionary operations.Also of note, the current implementation is somewhat redundant, with
UseDeclaredVarsMoreThanAssignments.AnalyzeScriptBlockAst
checkingVariablePath.DriveName
separately, which is why the issue does not affect environment variables despiteVariableAnalysis.IsGlobalOrEnvironment
erroneously returningfalse
in some cases.PR Checklist
.cs
,.ps1
and.psm1
files have the correct copyright headerWIP:
to the beginning of the title and remove the prefix when the PR is ready.