PMD

The PMD bundled plugin scans Java source code and other languages, and looks for potential problems such as bugs, dead code, suboptimal code, overcomplicated expressions, and duplicate code. Use the plugin in your code review process to find common programming flaws.

PMD is configurable and can find many different issues.

The PMD libraries are embedded in the plugin, so there are no external tools to install. Because PMD operates on source code files, add the PMD plugin to a chain that populates a workspace.

To configure the PMD step:

  1. Add the PMD step to a chain, as described in Create chains.

  2. Enter the plugin configuration details:

    Field Description
    Title Enter a name for the plugin step or accept the default name.
    Source folder

    Enter the relative stream directory against which to run the analysis, for example:

    src/main/java

    Command-line option (should be a relative path): -dir
    Rulesets location

    Select a ruleset location:

    • Use built-in rulesets (default).
    • Use local rulesets.
    • Use rulesets stored in the stream.
    Rulesets

    Enter a comma-separated list of ruleset names, for example:

    rulesets/java/basic.xml

    In addition to standard rulesets, you can use a custom ruleset.

    Command-line option: -rulesets
    Project classpath

    (Optional) Specify the classpath for libraries used by the source code, for example:

    commons-collections.jar;derby.jar

    Command-line option: -auxclasspath
    Source encoding

    (Optional) Specify the source code encoding, for example, UTF-8.

    Command-line option: -encoding
    Source language

    (Optional) Specify the source code language, for example, Java.

    Command-line option: -language
    Language version

    (Optional) Specify the version of the source code language.

    Command-line option: -version
    Show suppressed

    (Optional) Select to show suppressed findings.

    Example: false

    Command-line option: -showsuppressed
    Suppress marker

    (Optional) Specify the suppress marker, for example, NOPMDNEWMARKER.

    Command-line option: -suppressmarker

The PMD command-line option shows how each configuration field maps to the PMD command-line tool.

Tip: The PMD plugin and PMD command-line tool use the PMD core library. Any options that you can pass to the PMD command-line tool can also be passed to the PMD plugin.

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