Maven – PMD example

In this article, we will show you how to use Maven PMD Plugin to analyze the Java code.

P.S PMD requires Java 1.7

1. Maven PMD Plugin

Define the maven-pmd-plugin in the reporting tag, so that mvn site will generate the PMD report.

	<reporting>
        <plugins>
      
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.11.0</version>
            </plugin>

        </plugins>
    </reporting>

2. Java Code

A simple Java code. We will use Maven PMD plugin to analyze this code and display the issues in a report.

package com.mkyong.examples;

public class StaticCodeExample {

    //Unused field
    private int abc;

    private String ip = "127.0.0.1";

    public void test() {

        String[] field = {"a", "b", "c", "s", "e"};

        String s = "";
        for (int i = 0; i < field.length; ++i) {
            s = s + field[i];
        }

        System.out.println(ip);

    }

}

3. Maven Site

mvn compile site to generate a Maven site for the Java project, the PMD report will be generated and integrated into the Maven site automatically.

$ mvn compile site

[INFO] Generating "PMD" report           --- maven-pmd-plugin:3.11.0:pmd
[INFO] Generating "Dependency Information" report --- maven-project-info-reports-plugin:3.0.0:dependency-info
[INFO] Generating "About" report         --- maven-project-info-reports-plugin:3.0.0:index
[INFO] Generating "Plugin Management" report --- maven-project-info-reports-plugin:3.0.0:plugin-management
[INFO] Generating "Plugins" report       --- maven-project-info-reports-plugin:3.0.0:plugins
[INFO] Generating "Summary" report       --- maven-project-info-reports-plugin:3.0.0:summary
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  7.732 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2018-11-19T15:38:56+08:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. PMD Report

Review the report at target/site/pmd.html

5. FAQs

5.1 Review all PMD built-in rules for Java here.

Download Source Code

References

1. PMD official site
2. Maven PMD Plugin
3. List of tools for static code analysis