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.

References

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