PMD - Basic

General Principles

Understand how PMD works:

• does not compile the code
• does not run the code
• analyzes one .java file at a time
• works using the Abstract Syntax Tree (AST)

Not covered: No knowledge about javacc and jjtree is required.

Vocabulary and Concepts

Define the PMD specific meaning of the terms:

• rule
• ruleset
• violation
• report
• warning
• priority

Not covered:

• Parameter names (e.g. "threshold", "minimum")

Configuration Custom Rulesets, Suppressing warnings, Output, ... Packaged Rulesets

PMD comes with a large number of rules, grouped into rulesets.

For each ruleset, identify

• the code matched by each rule,
• the potential problem with the code,
• how to fix it

Not covered:

• Code Size
• Clone
• Controversial
• Coupling
• Finalizers
• J2EE
• Javabeans
• JUnit Tests
• Logging (Java)
• Logging (Jakarta)
• Migrating
• Optimizations
• Sun Security
• Java Server Pages
• Java Server Faces

Below is a brief description of each ruleset.