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Call to obsolete method

ID: cs/call-to-obsolete-method
Kind: problem
Security severity: 
Severity: warning
Precision: very-high
Tags:
   - changeability
   - maintainability
   - external/cwe/cwe-477
Query suites:
   - csharp-security-and-quality.qls

Click to see the query in the CodeQL repository

Methods with the [Obsolete] attribute are obsolete and should not be used. Obsolete methods are no longer supported and maintained, may not work correctly, and may be removed in the future.

Recommendation

Replace the method call with a call to a different method. The [Obsolete] attribute should suggest a replacement method to call. If the [Obsolete] attribute does not suggest a replacement, then read the class documentation and list of methods to find a suitable replacement.

Example

The following example shows some code which calls an obsolete method in a Logger class. The Log method has the attribute [Obsolete("Use Log(LogLevel level, string s) instead")] showing that it is obsolete.

using System;

class Bad
{
    void M()
    {
        Logger.Log("Hello, World!");
    }

    static class Logger
    {
        [Obsolete("Use Log(LogLevel level, string s) instead")]
        public static void Log(string s)
        {
            // ...
        }

        public static void Log(LogLevel level, string s)
        {
            // ...
        }
    }

    enum LogLevel
    {
        Info,
        Warning,
        Error
    }
}

The code is fixed by calling a different method in the Logger class as suggested by the attribute.

using System;

class Good
{
    void M()
    {
        Logger.Log(LogLevel.Info, "Hello, World!");
    }

    static class Logger
    {
        [Obsolete("Use Log(LogLevel level, string s) instead")]
        public static void Log(string s)
        {
            // ...
        }

        public static void Log(LogLevel level, string s)
        {
            // ...
        }
    }

    enum LogLevel
    {
        Info,
        Warning,
        Error
    }
}

References

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