Why does NDepend show CQL errors when run on the command line but not from the GUI?

Question

I've got this bit of CQL:

// <Name>A stateless class or structure might be turned into a static type</Name>
warnif count > 0 (from t in Application.Types where
  t.SizeOfInst ==0 &&

  // For accuracy, this constraint doesn't take
  // account of types that implement some interfaces.
  // and classes that have a base class and don't
  // derive directly from System.Object, or classes
  // that have sub-classes children.  
  t.NbInterfacesImplemented == 0 &&                           
  ((t.IsClass && t.DepthOfInheritance == 1   
            && t.NbChildren == 0)          
    || t.IsStructure) &&                   
  !t.IsStatic &&
  !t.DeriveFrom("System.Attribute") &&
  !t.IsAttributeClass &&
  !t.IsGeneric && t.Name!="Program" && !(t.IsGeneratedByCompiler || t.HasAttribute(@"NDepend.CQL.NDependIgnoreAttribute") || t.HasAttribute("System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CompilerGeneratedAttribute".AllowNoMatch()))
select new { t, t.SizeOfInst, t.NbInterfacesImplemented, 
             t.DepthOfInheritance, t.NbChildren }).Take(10)
  // this rule indicates stateless types that might 
  // eventually be turned into static classes.
  // See the definition of the SizeOfInst metric here 
  // http://www.ndepend.com/Metrics.aspx#SizeOfInst

It's fine in the GUI, but I get this message in the output report when I run it from the command line:

1 query syntax error: Not a valid type name {"System.Attribute"}

Any idea why?

Answer 1

It must come from the fact that mscorlib, the assembly that contains System.Attribute, is not resolve at analysis time. Are you running GUI and command line versions on the same machine? To look at assembly resolving go to NDepend Project Properties > Code to Analyze and see from where mscorlib is resolved by unfolding the folder panel.