checkstyle ANT Task

Description

This task runs checkstyle over specified Java files. The task has been tested using ANT 1.4.1. The latest version of checkstyle can be found at http://checkstyle.sourceforge.net/. This task is included in the checkstyle distribution.

Installation

The easiest way is to include checkstyle-all-2.2.jar in the classpath. This contains all the classes required to run checkstyle. Alternatively, you must include the following in the classpath:

checkstyle-2.2.jar
ANTLR 2.7.1 classes. antlr.jar is included in the distribution.
Jakarta Regexp 1.2 classes. jakarta-regexp-1.2.jar is included in the distribution.

To use the task in a build file, you will need the following taskdef declaration:

  <taskdef name="checkstyle"
           classname="com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle.CheckStyleTask"/>

Alternatively, since checkstyle version 2.2 you can use taskdef's resource attribute:

  <taskdef resource="checkstyletask.properties"/>

Parameters

Attribute	Description	Required
file	File to run checkstyle on.	One of either file or at least one nested fileset element
properties	Specifies a properties file that contains the configuration options. This is useful for sharing checkstyle configurations across ant build files. The property names to use in the file are the same as on the command line. Other parameters to the ANT task override the settings in the properties file.	No
lcurlyType	Specifies the policy of where to put the left brace '{' for type declarations. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "eol".	No
lcurlyMethod	Specifies the policy of where to put the left brace '{' for method declarations. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "eol".	No
lcurlyOther	Specifies the policy of where to put the left brace '{' for other declarations. The keywords covered is defined here. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "eol".	No
rcurly	Specifies the policy of where to put the right brace '}'. The keywords covered is defined here. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "same".	No
parenPad	Specifies the policy of how to pad parenthesises. The legal values are defined here. Defaults to "nospace".	No
allowTabs	Indicates whether to allow tabs. Defaults to "false".	No
allowProtected	Indicates whether to allow protected data. Defaults to "false".	No
allowPackage	Indicates whether to allow package visible data. Defaults to "false".	No
allowNoAuthor	Indicates whether to allow no @author tag to be defined for class and interface Javadoc comments. Defaults to "false".	No
maxLineLen	Specifies the maximum line length. Default value is defined here.	No
tabWidth	The distance between tab stops, used in line number and column calculations. Default value is "8".	No
ignoreLineLengthPattern	Specifies a regular expression for lines to ignore in maximum line length checks. Defaults to "^$".	No
ignoreImportLen	Specifies whether to ignore the maximum line length for import statements. Defaults to "false".	No
maxMethodLen	Specifies the maximum method length. Default value is defined here.	No
maxConstructorLen	Specifies the maximum constructor length. Default value is defined here.	No
maxFileLen	Specifies the maximum file length. Default value is defined here.	No
memberPattern	Specifies the regular expression to match against member variables. Default value is defined here.	No
publicMemberPattern	Specifies the regular expression to match against public member variables. Default value is defined here.	No
paramPattern	Specifies the regular expression to match against parameters. Default value is defined here.	No
constPattern	Specifies the regular expression to match against static/final variables. Default value is defined here.	No
staticPattern	Specifies the regular expression to match against static variables. Default value is defined here.	No
typePattern	Specifies the regular expression to match against type names. Default value is defined here.	No
methodPattern	Specifies the regular expression to match against method names. Default value is defined here.	No
localVarPattern	Specifies the regular expression to match against local variable names. Default value is defined here.	No
headerFile	Specifies the file containing the header lines. Default is to not check.	No
headerLinesRegexp	Specifies whether to interpret each line in the headerFile as a regular expression. Default is "false".	No
headerIgnoreLine	Specifies a comma separated list of the lines in the header to ignore when comparing. Default is to not ignore any line.	No
javadocScope	Specifies the visibility scope where javadoc comments are checked. Valid values are "nothing", "public", "protected", "package", "private" and "anoninner". Defaults to "private".	No
requirePackageHtml	Specifies whether to require that package documentation is available. Defaults to "false".	No
ignoreImports	Specifies whether to ignore checking import statements. Defaults to "false".	No
illegalImports	Comma separated list of package prefixes that are not allowed in import statements. Defaults to "sun".	No
ignoreWhitespace	Specifies whether to ignore checking whitespace. Defaults to "false".	No
ignoreCastWhitespace	Specifies whether to ignore checking for whitespace after a cast. Defaults to "false".	No
ignoreBraces	Specifies whether to ignore checking braces. Defaults to "false".	No
ignorePublicInInterface	Specifies whether to ignore the public keyword in interface definitions. Defaults to "false".	No
failOnViolation	Specifies whether the build will continue even if there are violations. Defaults to "true".	No
failureProperty	The name of a property to set in the event of a violation.	No
cacheFile	Specifies the name of a file that can be used to cache details of files that pass checkstyle. This can signicantly increase the speed of checkstyle on successive runs.	No

Older versions of the checkstyle task supported the boolean parameters relaxJavadoc and ignoreJavadoc. These parameters have been removed because they were conflicting and the semantics of relaxJavadoc was not clearly specified. The two parameters have been replaced by the javadocScope parameter. Instead of ignoreJavadoc="true" you can now use javadocScope="nothing". The behaviour of relaxJavadoc="true" is roughly the same as javadocScope="protected".

Nested Elements

This task supports the nested elements <fileset> and <formatter>. The parameters for the <formatter> element are:

type

The type of output to generate. The valid values are:

plain - specifies the DefaultLogger
xml - specifies the XMLLogger

Defaults to "plain".

toFile

The file to write output to. Defaults to standard output. Note, there is no way to explicitly specify standard output.

Examples

Run checkstyle on a single file

  <checkstyle file="Check.java"/>

Run checkstyle on a set of Java files in directory

  <checkstyle>
    <fileset dir="src/checkstyle" includes="**/*.java"/>
  </checkstyle>

Run checkstyle on a set of Java files and allow tabs

  <checkstyle allowTabs="yes">
    <fileset dir="src/checkstyle" includes="**/*.java"/>
  </checkstyle>

Run checkstyle on a set of files and output messages to standard output in plain format, and a file in XML format

  <checkstyle>
    <fileset dir="src/checkstyle" includes="**/*.java"/>
    <formatter type="plain"/>
    <formatter type="xml" toFile="build/checkstyle_errors.xml"/>
  </checkstyle>

Run checkstyle on a set of Java files and disable pattern matching

  <checkstyle allowTabs="yes"
              paramPattern="."
              constPattern="."
              staticPattern="."
              memberPattern=".">
    <fileset dir="src/checkstyle" includes="**/*.java"/>
  </checkstyle>

Run checkstyle in an automated build and send an email report if style violations are detected

  <target name="checkstyle"
          description="Generates a report of code convention violations.">

    <checkstyle failureProperty="checkstyle.failure"
                failOnViolation="false">
      <formatter type="xml" tofile="checkstyle_report.xml"/>
      <fileset dir="src" includes="**/*.java"/>
    </checkstyle>

    <style in="checkstyle_report.xml" out="checkstyle_report.html" style="checkstyle.xsl"/>

  </target>

  <!-- run this target as part of automated build -->
  <target name="checkstyle-nightly"
          depends="checkstyle" 
          if="checkstyle.failure"
          description="Sends email if checkstyle detected code conventions violations.">

    <!-- use your own server and email addresses below. See Ant documentation for details -->

    <mail from="qa@some.domain"
          tolist="someone@some.domain,someoneelse@some.domain"
          mailhost="mailbox.some.domain"
          subject="Checkstyle violation(s) in project ${ant.project.name}"
          files="checkstyle_report.html"/>

  </target>