# Ant Task

- About
- Checkstyle
- Documentation
- Release Notes
- Configuration
- Property Types
- Running
- Ant Task
- Description
- Installation
- Parameters
- Nested Elements
- Examples
- Command Line
- Available Checks
- Standard Checks
- Javadoc Comments
- Naming Conventions
- Headers
- Imports
- Size Violations
- Whitespace
- Modifiers
- Block Checks
- Coding
- Class Design
- Duplicate Code
- Metrics
- Miscellaneous
- Optional Checks
- J2EE Checks
- Extending Checkstyle
- Writing checks
- Writing filters
- Writing listeners
- Javadoc
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## Description

This task runs Checkstyle over specified Java files. The task has been tested using ANT 1.5. 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-4.2.jar in the classpath. This contains all the classes required to run Checkstyle. Alternatively, you must include the following in the classpath:

1. checkstyle-4.2.jar
2. ANTLR 2.7.2 classes. antlr.jar is included in the distribution.
3. Jakarta Commons Beanutils classes. commons-beanutils.jar is included in the distribution.
4. Jakarta Commons Collections classes. commons-collections.jar is included in the distribution.
5. Jakarta Commons Logging classes. commons-logging.jar is included in the distribution.
6. A JAXP compliant XML parser implementation. You already have it on your system if you run ANT or JDK 1.4.

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

    <taskdef resource="checkstyletask.properties"
             classpath="/path/to/checkstyle-all-4.2.jar"/>

Or, assuming that Checkstyle is in the global classpath (not recommended), then you will need the following `taskdef` declaration:

    <taskdef resource="checkstyletask.properties"/>

Or if you use Ant 1.6 and later and assuming that Checkstyle is in the library search path, then you may use antlib feature of Ant (see http://ant.apache.org/manual/CoreTypes/antlib.html for more details). For example:

    <project name="foo" ...
             xmlns:cs="antlib:com.puppycrawl.tools.checkstyle">
    ...
      <cs:checkstyle>
      ...
      </cs:checkstyle>
    ...
    </project>

## Parameters

Attribute | Description | Required
file | File to run checkstyle on. | One of either file or at least one nested fileset element
config | Specifies a file that defines the configuration modules. See here for a description of how to define a configuration. | Exactly one of config or configURL
configURL | Specifies a URL that defines the configuration modules. See here for a description of how to define a configuration. | Exactly one of config or configURL
properties | Specifies a file that contains properties for expanded property values of the configuration. Ant properties (like ${basedir}) and nested property elements override the properties in this file. | No
packageNamesFile | Specifies a file that contains package names for the configuration. | 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
maxErrors | The maximum number of errors that are tolerated before breaking the build or setting the failure property. Defaults to "0". | No
maxWarnings | The maximum number of warnings that are tolerated before breaking the build or setting the failure property. Defaults to "2147483647", i.e. Integer.MAX_VALUE. | No
classpath | The classpath to use when looking up classes. Defaults to the current classpath. | No
classpathref | The classpath to use when looking up classes, given as a reference to a path defined elsewhere. | No

## Nested Elements

This task supports the nested elements <fileset>, <classpath>, <formatter>, and <property>.

The parameters for the <formatter> element are:

Attribute | Description | Required
type | The type of output to generate. The valid values are:

- plain - specifies the DefaultLogger
- xml - specifies the XMLLogger

Defaults to "plain".

No
toFile | The file to write output to. Defaults to standard output. Note, there is no way to explicitly specify standard output. | No
useFile | Boolean that determines whether output should be sent to a file. Default is true. | No

A <property> element provides a property for expanded property values of the configuration. The parameters for the <property> element are:

Attribute | Description | Required
key | The key for the property. | Yes
value | The value of the property specified as a string. | Either value or file
file | The value of the property specified as a file. This is great for specifying file names relative to the ANT build file. | Either value or file

## Examples

Run checkstyle with configuration file `docs/sun_checks.xml` on a single file

    <checkstyle config="docs/sun_checks.xml" file="Check.java"/>

Run checkstyle on a set of Java files using site-wide configuration and an expanded property value

    <checkstyle config="/path/to/site/sun_checks.xml">
      <fileset dir="src/checkstyle" includes="**/*.java"/>

      <!-- Location of cache-file. Something that is project specific -->
      <property key="checkstyle.cache.file" file="target/cachefile"/>
    </checkstyle>

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

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

Run checkstyle with configuration file `docs/sun_checks.xml` on a file and provide a package names file

    <checkstyle config="docs/sun_checks.xml"
                packageNamesFile="myPackageNames.xml"
                file="Check.java"/>

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 config="docs/sun_checks.xml"
                  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>

Copyright © 2001-2005, Oliver Burn