Source Code Quality Checks using PMD Plugin

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These automated source code quality checks and verifies still cannot ensure that the application itself is designed correctly. However, it can help some of the lesser experienced programmers adhere to the standards expected of them.

Create Simple Maven Project

The Apache Maven PMD plugin automatically runs the PMD code analysis tool on the source code and generates a site report with results. In a typical configuration, the build fails if PMD detects quality issues in the source. This plugin introduces four goals:
  • pmd:pmd creates a PMD site report based on the rulesets and configuration set in
  • the plugin
  • pmd:cpd generates a report for PMD's Copy/Paste Detector (CPD) tool
  • pmd:check verifies that the PMD report is empty and fails the build if it is not
  • pmd:cpd-check verifies that the CPD report is empty and fails the build if it is not
How to do it The following steps need to be taken to integrate source code quality checks into your Apache Maven project's build cycle.
Let's start a new Maven project, use the Maven Archetype plugin from the command line.
You will need somewhere for your project to reside, create a directory somewhere and start a shell in that directory. On your command line, execute the following Maven goal:
mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.companyname.projectname  -DartifactId=simple-maven-project  -Dpackage=com.companyname.projectname  -Dversion=1.0-SNAPSHOT
Note that the whole command should be a single line. After build success, we will see the below output in the command line console.
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 01:23 min
[INFO] Finished at: 2018-06-20T10:50:40+05:30
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
You will notice that the general goal created a directory with the same name given as the artifactId. Change into that directory.
cd simple-maven-project

Maven Standard Directory Layout

Once we’ve generated a project, take a look at the directory structure Maven created under the simple directory:
simple-maven-project
|-- pom.xml
`-- src
    |-- main
    |   `-- java
    |       `-- com
    |           `-- mycompany
    |               `-- app
    |                   `-- App.java
    `-- test
        `-- java
            `-- com
                `-- mycompany
                    `-- app
                        `-- AppTest.java
This generated directory adheres to the Maven Standard Directory Layout.

Configure Apache Maven PMD plugin 

Launch the project's POM file in a text editor for editing. The PMD plugin needs to be integrated into your project. It can be added to the project POM file under the reporting element:
<reporting>
  <plugins>
   <plugin>
   <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
   <artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
   <version>2.5</version>
   </plugin>
  </plugins>
 </reporting>
This can be used to run the PMD checks with default rulesets and configurations. Here's an optional step: if you wish to use a custom set of rules and configuration for code-quality checks, it can be done by adding a configuration block to the plugin declaration. Have a look at the following code:
<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.5</version>
 <configuration>
   <rulesets>
   <ruleset>/rulesets/basic.xml</ruleset>
   <ruleset>/rulesets/controversial.xml</ruleset>
   <ruleset>http://localhost/design.xml</ruleset>
   </rulesets>
   <sourceEncoding>utf-8</sourceEncoding>
   <minimumTokens>100</minimumTokens>
   <targetJdk>1.6</targetJdk>
 </configuration>
 </plugin>
To execute these PMD checks, start the command line, navigate to the project POM folder, and execute the pmd goal in the pmd plugin, as shown as follows:
mvn pmd:pmd
The PMD checks can be integrated with Maven's default build lifecycle, as shown in the following code:
<build>
  <plugins>
   <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-pmd-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.5</version>
   <executions>
   <execution>
    <goals>
    <goal>check</goal>
    <goal>cpd-check</goal>
    </goals>
    </execution>
   </executions>
   </plugin>
  </plugins>
 </build>

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