问题
We are introducing static analysis tools into the build system for our Java product. We are using Maven2 so Checkstyle and PMD integration come for free. However it looks like there is a large overlap in functionality between these two tools, in terms of enforcing basic style rules.
Is there a benefit from utilizing both of these? I don't want to maintain 2 tools if one will work. If we choose one, which one should we use and why?
We are also planning on using FindBugs. Are there other static analysis tools we should look at?
Update: Consensus seems to be that PMD is preferred over CheckStyle. I don't see a solid reason to use both, and I don't want to maintain 2 sets of rule files, so we will probably aim for PMD exclusively. We'll also be bringing in FindBugs, and perhaps, eventually, Macker to enforce architectural rules.
回答1:
You should definitely use FindBugs. In my experience, the false-positive rate is very low, and even the least-critical warnings it reports are worth addressing to some extent.
As for Checkstyle vs. PMD, I would not use Checkstyle since it is pretty much only concerned with style. In my experience, Checkstyle will report on a ton of things that are completely irrelevant. PMD on the other hand is also able to point out questionable coding practices and its output is generally more relevant and useful.
回答2:
Both softwares are useful. Checkstyle will help you during your programming by checking your coding style i.e braces, naming etc. Simple things but very numerous!
PMD will help you by checking more complicate rules like during the design of your classes, or for more special problems like implementing correctly the clone function. Simply, PMD will check your programming style
However, both softwares suffers from similar rules sometimes bad explained. With a bad configuration, you may check things twice or two opposite things i.e "Remove useless constructors" and "Always one constructor".
回答3:
If we choose one, which one should we use and why?
These tools are not competing but are complementary and should be used simultaneously.
The convention type (Checkstyle) is the glue that enables people to work together and to free up their creativity instead of spending time and energy at understanding inconsistent code.
Checkstyle examples:
- Is there javadoc on public methods ?
- Is the project following Sun naming conventions ?
- Is the code written with a consistent format ?
while PMD reminds you bad practices:
- Catching an exception without doing anything
- Having dead code
- Too many complex methods
- Direct use of implementations instead of interfaces
- Implementing the hashcode() method without the not equals(Object object) method
source: http://www.sonarsource.org/what-makes-checkstyle-pmd-findbugs-and-macker-complementary/
回答4:
We use both:
- Checkstyle to make sure that everyone in the team write code in a similar maner
- PMD to find problematic code areas and next refactoring targets
回答5:
If your primary place of use is while developing in eclipse, then CodePro from Instantiations will be best. Earlier it was a commercial tool, but now Google bought Instantiations so CodePro analytix is free now.
Check out http://code.google.com/javadevtools/download-codepro.html
回答6:
If you reviewed Checkstyle, PMD and Findbugs rule lists, you have seen that all three provide valuable output and all three overlap to a degree and also bring their own, unique rules to the table. This is why tools like Sonar use all three.
That said, Findbugs has the most specific or niche rules (e.g. "Dubious catching of IllegalMonitorStateException" - how often are you likely to run into that?) so it is usable with little or no configuration and its warnings should be taken seriously. With Checkstyle and PMD the rules are more general and style-related so they should only be used with custom configuration files to spare the team from an avalanche of irrelevant feedback ("Tab char on line 5", "Tab char on line 6", "Tab char on line 7"... you get the picture). They also provide powerful tools to write your own advanced rules, e.g. the Checkstyle DescendentToken rule.
When using all three (especially with a tool like Sonar), all of them should be configured separately (takes at least a few days to cover all the rules) while paying attention to prevent duplication (all three tools detect that hashCode() has been overridden and equals() not, for example).
In summary, if you consider static code analysis valuable, rejecting the value any of the three provides makes no sense, but to use all three, you have to invest time to configure them to give you usable feedback.
回答7:
Sonar (http://www.sonarsource.org/) is a very useful open platform to manage code quality, and includes Checkstyle, PMD, Findbugs and much more.
This also indicates that all 3 tools have their right to exist...
回答8:
Both tools are configurable and can do just about the same things. That said, if we're talking about out-of-the-box stuff, there is a great deal of overlap, but there are distinct rules/checks as well. For example, Checkstyle has stronger support for checking Javadoc and finding magic numbers, to name a couple. Additionally, Checkstyle has an "import control" feature that looks similar to the functionality of Macker (I've not used Macker).
If there are things that are important to you that Checkstyle does out-of-the-box that PMD doesn't, you might consider a minimal Checkstyle configuration with only those checks. Then institute a policy that the Checkstyle configuration cannot grow, simply remove checks as you implement similar functionality with, say, custom PMD rules.
Also consider that if you decide that the Checkstyle "import control" feature covers what you wanted from Macker, then you could implement PMD/Checkstyle instead of PMD/Macker. Either way it's two tools, but with Checkstyle, you'd get the stuff that PMD doesn't do out-of-the-box "for free."
回答9:
Checkstyle and PMD both are good at checking coding standards and are easy to extend. But PMD has additional rules to check for cyclomatic complexity,Npath complexity,etc which allows you write healthy code.
Another advantage of using PMD is CPD (Copy/Paste Detector).It finds out code duplication across projects and is not constrained to JAVA.It works for JSP too. Neal Ford has a good presentation on Metrics Driven Agile Development, which talks about many tools that are helpful for Java/Java EE Development
回答10:
I find Checkstyle and PMD are best for enforcing style issues and simple obvious coding bugs. Although I've found that I like using Eclipse and all the warnings it provides better for that purpose. We enforce stuff by using shared preferences and marking them as actual errors. That way, they never get checked in in the first place.
What I would strongly and enthusiastically recommend is using FindBugs. Because it works at the bytecode level it can check things that are impossible at the source level. While it spits out its fair share of junks, it has found many actual and important bugs in our code.
回答11:
And 10 years later ... In 2018 I use all of them Checkstyle, PMD and FindBugs.
Start with FindBugs. Maybe add PMD and Checkstyle later.
Never blindly enforce the default rules !
Steps:
- run one tool with default rules on a project which has a lot of code
- adapt the rules to this project, comment out useless rules with some notes
- focus on the low hanging fruits rules (NPE, logger checks, unclosed resource checks, ...)
- perform some fixes for rules you find worthwhile (one at a time !)
- do this for each tool but not all at once !
- repeat this process
Ideally each project can have separate rules. I like running the rules via the build (via maven plugins) and fail on rule errors once I know a project passes all the rules I defined. This forces developers to take action, because reporting is not enough. From that point on your project is pretty much bullet proof and you could even add more rules later on and/or write custom rules.
回答12:
One point I have not seen so far is that there are plugins for IDEs that will enforce CheckStyle rulesets on your code, whereas PMD plugins will only report on violations. For example, in a multi-site project over several programming teams, it's important to actively enforce standards, rather than just to report on them.
Both tools have plugins available for IntelliJ, NetBeans, and Eclipse (in my view this covers most usage). I'm not as familiar with NetBeans, so can only comment on IntelliJ and Eclipse.
Anyway, the PMD plugins for IntelliJ, and Eclipse, will generate reports on demand on PMD violations within the project codebase.
The CheckStyle plugins, on the other hand, will highlight violations on the fly, and can (at least for IntelliJ, I have less experience with Eclipse) be configured to automatically convert some issues (e.g. for 'OneStatementPerLine', will place CR-LF between statements, for 'NeedBraces', will add braces where they are missing, etc.). Obviously, only the simpler violations can be automatically fixed, but it's still a help on legacy projects, or projects located over several locations.
'On demand' for PMD means that the developer must consciously decide to run the report. Whereas Checkstyle violations are automatically reported to them as they develop. While PMD does contain a more extensive ruleset, in my mind the automatic enforecement/reporting of violations in IDEs is worth the hassle of maintaining 2 sets of rules.
So for any projects I work on, we use both tools, Checkstyle enforced in the IDE, PMD reported in the IDE, and both reported and measured in builds (through Jenkins).
回答13:
Take a look at qulice-maven-plugin that combines together Checkstyle, PMD, FindBugs and a few other static analyzers, and pre-configures them. The beauty of this combination is that you don't need to configure them individually in every project:
<plugin>
<groupId>com.qulice</groupId>
<artifactId>qulice-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>0.15</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>check</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
回答14:
PMD is what I find more people referring to. Checkstyle was what people were referring to 4 years ago but I believe PMD is maintained more continuously and what other IDEs/plugins choose to work with.
回答15:
I would echo the comment that PMD is the more current product for Java style/convention checking. With respect to FindBugs, many commercial development groups are using Coverity.
回答16:
I have just started to use Checkstyle and PMD. To me, PMD is more easier to create customized rules for things such that whether there exists System.gc(), Runtime.gc(), as long as you can write the XPath Query which is also not difficult at all. However, PMD has not shown me that it has the feature to show column number. So for things like check column limits. You might would like to use Checkstyle.
回答17:
PMD is the finest tool when compare with checkstyles. Checkstyles may not have the capability to analyse the code while PMD offering many features to do so! Offcourse PMD has not released rules for javadoc, comments, indentations and etc. And by the way i am planning to implement these rules.......thanx
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/184563/checkstyle-vs-pmd