Code refactoring is a controller technique or process of restructuring your code without changing its external behavior for easier maintenance, better readability, understanding, and extended support. The main purpose of refactoring is to fight technical debt. Code refactoring transforms a mess into clean code and simple design. Visual Studio provides its own refactoring capabilities and it supports a list of third-party code refactoring tools.
Visual Studio Code Refactoring Tools
Below, we look at some of the top Visual Studio tools and add-ons for code refactoring .Net and C# applications.
Read: Debugging Tools for C# and .Net.
Refactoring Essentials
Refactoring Essentials is an open-source free Visual Studio extension for C# and VB.NET code refactoring. It makes your code better and easier to read. The extension provides recommendations on how to improve your code quality and converts C# code to Visual Basic and vice versa (VB to C#). VS Refactoring Essentials is available as a Visual Studio extension, NuGet packaged for build servers/IDEs, and Refactoring Essentials assembly (can be added in your solution from an add reference).
JustCode Code Refactoring Tool
JustCode is a Visual Studio extension for code analysis and refactoring that was developed by Telerik. The developer community mostly uses this tool as an agile development add-in for Visual Studio to boost .NET development. JustCode integrates seamlessly with your natural workflow, with quick hints, code generation, unit test runner, and smart refactoring. It improves your code quality. It provides features for C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, XAML, Razor, CSS, JavaScript, and HTML; it also supports multi-language solutions. JustCode also provides features such as code navigation and search, code generation, code templates, decompile for debugging, and so forth.
ReSharper
ReSharper is a code quality analysis and refactoring tool available for C#, VB.NET, XAML, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS, HTML, and XML. It’s a renowned productivity tool developed by Jetbrains. ReSharper makes Visual Studio a much better IDE. ReSharper can help a developer with code quality analysis, navigation and search, coding assistance, refactorings, code generation, code templates, code cleanup, unit testing, internationalization, ASP.NET and ASP.NET MVC Tools, XAML editing tools, cross-language functionality, NAnt and MSBuild Script Editing, and Open API.
CodeRush
CodeRush helps developers write better code faster; it also provides quick refactoring, the capability to run test cases quickly, and find and fix defects. CodeRush makes it easier for developers to create and maintain source code with extreme efficiency. CodeRush is recommended for test-driven development; nothing is faster than CodeRush. It has analyzed code coverage features to scan an entire project to find out what parts of your solution are covered by unit tests. CodeRush lets you create new test cases with a single keystroke. It also detects unit tests written using the NUnit, xUnit, MSpec, and MSTest frameworks. The analysis diagnostics feature helps you detect and correct possible code issues and code smells. With visualized code and intuitive debugging, CodeRush makes it easier to review complex code.
Read: Best Practices for Code Refactoring in C# and .Net.
Visual Assist X Code Refactoring Add-On for Visual Studio
Visual Assist is a plug-in for Visual Studio to enhance code suggestions; it provides refactoring commands and basic syntax mistakes, and spell-checking support. Visual Assist reduces the complexity of code, improves its readability, and makes it extensible by refactoring your code. Visual Assist added Visual C++ support with the Visual Studio Community Edition.
DPack
DPack is a free collection of Microsoft Visual Studio tools to increase a developer’s productivity, automate repetitive processes, and extend Microsoft Visual Studio features. DPack provides various browser tools that allow the developer to quickly find solution files, types, particular type members, methods, or properties.
JS Refactor
JS Refactor is a Visual Studio code extension for adding refactorings to help speed up the development process and reduce a JavaScript developer’s development time.
Code Style Enforcer
The Code Style Enforcer tool gives instant visual feedback inside the C# code editor when someone violates any of the configurable code rules. The default rules are based on the C# coding standards from design, which is the most complete code standard available and it is free to download.
Code Refactoring Tools for Visual Studio, .Net, and C#
That is all for today on our list of code refactoring tools for Visual Studio, .Net, and C#. As you can see, there are a lot of options available in Visual Studio for code refactoring add-ons and it is a very easy task to perform with these extensions and tools. I am suggesting that developers use code refactor tools because they have many benefits that go beyond the obvious, and is an activity worthy of the time devoted to it. Refactoring doesn’t just produce better code; it produces better coders.
